Reusable packaging company Dizzie – which has worked with brands including Abel & Cole, Milk & More, and The Modern Milkman – has ceased operations.
The company blamed stalled adoption among grocers and an inability to attract further investment for its demise.
“This is not a proof point that reuse doesn’t work,” said company founder Ben Patten. “None of our experiences in the last five years have changed our conviction: reusable packaging remains a massive opportunity for the food and drink industry to reduce its environmental impact and to do so at a lower cost. A huge new market will emerge for this category. We were, perhaps, just too early.”
Dizzie – formerly known as Good Club – started as a zero-waste online supermarket where products were delivered in reusable packaging that was collected by the service at the time of the next delivery, then washed and reused. It launched a B2B “reusable packaging as a service” offering to brands and retailers in late 2022. In March last year DTC operations ceased.
“We were never going to reach the scale of a Walmart, and we had to accept that the most valuable thing we could do is help the big brands and grocers make their transitions to reusable packaging,” Patten told The Grocer at the time. “This move was always part of our evolving plan to serve a scaled reuse market.”
As part of the pivot away from DTC, the business partnered with online grocer Abel & Cole, to provide an outsourced solution for its Club Zero refillable range.
In December, the company raised more than £500k in crowdfunding and said it would use the cash injection to begin a trial with “a major grocer”, roll out its reusable container tracking system, and develop new packaging.
Patten said Dizzie had created “the foundations for a viable and scalable reusable packaging solution” and processed more than three million units through its existence.
“Our vision of a highly standardised, highly efficient packaging pooling company can work, providing a route to lower costs per use than a single-use equivalent and helping returnable packaging scale into mainstream groceries,” Patten said.
“What’s needed in the transition is conviction and collaboration: conviction from policymakers to ensure the costs of single-use are baked in, and collaboration between retailers and producers, providing the necessary signal to reusable packaging specialists, collection, cleaning and logistics businesses to support the new reuse value chain,” he added.
Returnable packaging schemes have had mixed success in the UK. Tesco in 2022 quietly wound up its reusable packaging trial with eco company Loop, after admitting such initiatives will require a major consumer mindset shift before they can be rolled out at scale. The supermarket launched its Loop trial in 10 stores in September 2021, with refillable aisles featuring 88 branded and own-label products in reusable and durable packaging.
Last month, Ocado extended its reusable packaging scheme to more own-label SKUs after launching the initiative in August, claiming to be the first major supermarket to trial an online reusable packaging scheme.
Consumer demand appears significant. A survey of 2,000 consumers undertaken by Ocado Retail and Savanta revealed almost three-quarters (72%) were concerned about the amount of waste generated by single-use packaging of grocery products, with one in three opting to use retailers that provide refillable options for their pantry staples. The majority of consumers (73%) agreed more supermarkets should offer refillable options, especially across essential items.
“It is something we observed in DTC and was the primary driver for the reuse range we supplied Abel & Cole (Club Zero), which improved their retention figures by more than two percentage points, saving them hundreds of thousands of pounds every year of operation in customer acquisition costs,” Patten said. “Why haven’t more retailers considered that there is strong latent demand for helping their customers reduce their packaging footprint through reuse and, therefore, a prize for early adopters?”
Figures from this year’s Big Plastic Count estimate up to 90 billion units of single-use plastics are sold by the UK grocery market each year. Last year, an Efra Committee report highlighted that “increasing the uptake of reusable packaging is essential for reducing the total amount of packaging consumed in the UK”.
Dizzie’s final six employees have all found new roles. Shareholders have appointed a liquidator for the dissolved company.
“We believe our experience in developing packaging, asset tracking, and supporting ops has helped us gain the strategic insight needed to progress in this new category,” Patten said. “We are, therefore, incredibly frustrated that we have not been able to continue the work.”
No comments yet