British sustainable packaging firm Frugalpac have seen their revolutionary paper Frugal Bottle appear in the new crime blockbuster on Netflix, ‘Bodies’.
The Ipswich company was asked last year to make bespoke Frugal Bottles by Bodies’ production team for the eight-part drama’s future storyline set in 2053. The show is currently the most watched show on Netflix worldwide.
The Frugal Bottle is the world’s first and only commercially available paper bottle for wines, spirits and olive oils and is made from 94% recycled cardboard. It has a carbon footprint six times lower than a glass bottle and is five times lighter too.
The specially made paper bottles appear on screen for more than five minutes and Frugalpac hope it will lead to even more enquires for the paper bottles and the machines that make them.
The starring appearance in the Netflix series comes just a few weeks after they made and presented bespoke paper bottles for the King and Queen to mark their state visit to Bordeaux. The Queen took two of the ‘Cardbordeaux 2023’ bottles away with her for herself and the King.
Frugalpac was approached by Bodies’ production team, Moonage Pictures, in July 2022 after the team had seen coverage of the paper bottles, which are now being used by more than 35 drinks brands around the world, including in the UK.
The team wanted to use ‘vintage paper bottles’ to be used in the scene when DC Iris Maplewood (actress Shira Haas) is drinking and chatting in her flat with Gabriel Defoe, played by actor Tom Morthersdale.
Frugalpac, which won SME of the Year at the 2023 UK Green Business Awards, made two bottles for the show: a Château Montcasse Cabernet Sauvignon 2050 and a Château Serephinelle Merlot 2039 Reserve, which appears on-screen in the scenes with DC Maplewood and Gabriel Defoe.
It was a great accolade to be recognised as an alternative packaging format today for wines and spirits but the foresight of the Moonage Pictures team saw the Frugal Bottle as mainstream drinks packaging in the future.
Frugalpac CEO Malcolm Waugh said:
“It’s quite something to see our paper Frugal Bottle in the most watched show on Netflix around the world. You could say it’s nice to ‘know you are loved!’
“We were approached last year to make the bespoke paper bottles for the production team and had quite a tight turnaround to get them designed and made. It was a great opportunity to promote our Frugal Bottles around the world and we were honoured to be asked to make them. The foresight the production team had in recognising the future was paper was extremely satisfying for Frugalpac.
“It’s been quite a busy four weeks for us. We made and presented commemorative paper bottles called Cardboardeaux 2023 for the King and Queen and now we’re making our debut on Netflix. It’s brilliant publicity for our bottles and our hard working team in Ipswich who make them.
“Frugalpac’s mission is to decarbonise the drinks industry because 40% of a wine bottle’s carbon footprint is the glass bottle itself. That’s why we developed the Frugal Bottle, which is made from 94% recycled cardboard and uses 84% less carbon than a glass bottle.
“Our paper bottle revolution is realty taking off. As well as making bottles for over 35 drinks brands around the world, we’ve also sold two Frugal Bottle Machines to the US and Canada with another 100 enquiries to buy further machines too. No doubt, there’ll be even more interest thanks to our guest appearance in Bodies.”
It’s three years since the Frugal Bottle launched in June 2020, making it the world’s first commercially available paper bottle for wines, spirits, and olive oils. Frugalpac were invited along with other UK businesses to display their goods at a British event at Bordeaux’s Place de la Bourse to mark the monarch’s visit.
Since launching in June 2020 with a red wine from Italian winery Cantina Goccia, the Frugal Bottle is now used by more than 35 drinks brands, in 128 SKUs in 25 countries around the world, including major wine producing nations like France, Spain, Italy, the US, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
They have sold more than 1.8 million paper bottles, saving over 750 tonnes of CO2.
Frugalpac aims to decarbonise the global drinks industry by selling its Frugal Bottle Assembly Machines (“FBAM-1”) into local wine regions around the world.
Last year it sold its first paper bottle machine to Canada’s KinsBrae Packaging and Frugalpac have just sold another machine to California’s Monterey Wine Company.
Greenall’s Gin and When in Rome wines have won listings in Sainsbury’s and Ocado for their paper Frugal Bottles, while Welsh brand Flawless Flavoured Vodka débuted its paper bottles on Tesco shelves in April and Interpunkt wines in collaboration with South Africa’s Journey’s End are now available in all UK All Bar Ones.
Other brands using the Frugal Bottle include The English Vine’s No1 white wine, Signal 7 Wines in the US, Spain’s Planet B by Bodegas Murviedro, and Spain’s Bodegas Fernando Castro organic wines.
It’s also used by NB Distillery’s School Night and Silent Pool’s Green Man for gin and vodka, a Mexican organic tequila Buen Vato from Sweden’s Alias Smith, Half Shell Vodka by Florida’s Distillery 98, cocktails by Bottle Proof Cocktails, flavoured vodka by south Wales’ Flawless Vodkas, Wildjac rum from the UK, Wisconsin-based Demon Spirits rum, four gins by New Zealand based UK expats Mothers Ruined Gin and Italy’s Evviva and Greece’s AONES for olive oil. Imminent releases in the Frugal Bottle include wines from Spanish producer Bodegas Alodia, Australian Mother of Pearl Vodka, Silk Shot cocktail by Sweden’s Tapdance and in the UK and US, Alchemy Wines’s 100 year old Tempranillo, 12 Giants Merlot by Laithwaites and UK-based wine brand Savvy Pair.