Food and Drink Industry 13 – 19 Apr: Ft PulPac, PA Consulting, Diageo, Alpro and more
- PulPac, PA Consulting and Diageo are pushing fibre-based bottles closer to commercial reality, with paper-led formats now being tested for spirits.
- Alpro, PerfectTed, Lantern and Forest Feast are accelerating the matcha boom with new launches across ready-to-drink, soda and snacking formats.
- The UK and Japan have formally recognised each other’s organic livestock standards, opening new export opportunities for British food producers including Calon Wen.
A Food Industry in Motion
The food and drink industry rarely stands still for long, but the current pace of change feels particularly striking.
On one side, packaging innovators are trying to solve one of the sector’s most stubborn sustainability challenges by making fibre-based bottles commercially viable. On the other, brands are racing to capture the fast-growing matcha trend with a fresh wave of drinks and snacks.
At the same time, British food producers have been handed a major trade boost through a new UK-Japan agreement on organic livestock standards.
Taken together, these developments reveal an industry moving on several fronts at once. It is trying to become more circular, more trend-responsive and more globally ambitious, all while navigating regulation, infrastructure gaps, consumer expectations and the commercial realities of scale.
PulPac, PA Consulting and Diageo Push Fibre Bottles Towards the Mainstream
Few packaging ideas have generated as much intrigue in recent years as the fibre-based bottle.
The appeal is obvious. Glass remains fully recyclable and reusable, but it is heavy, energy-intensive to produce and costly to transport. Paper, by contrast, already benefits from strong recycling habits and well-established recovery streams across Europe. The challenge has always been performance.
Because fibres are naturally porous and hygroscopic, paper has historically been better suited to bags, boxes and cartons than to primary drinks packaging. That limitation is precisely what a cross-industry collective led by PulPac, PA Consulting and Diageo has been trying to overcome.
Back in 2023, PulPac and PA Consulting launched the Bottle Collective, with Diageo as a founding member. Its goal is ambitious but commercially grounded: to develop a fibre bottle alternative that can help reduce dependence on single-use plastic in FMCG sectors.
At the centre of the project is PulPac’s Dry Molded Fibre technology, which uses renewable pulp and cellulose resources to create high-performance fibre packaging through a process said to generate less carbon dioxide than plastic or conventional wet moulding, while using virtually no water in manufacturing.
That is not a minor claim. If it can be delivered consistently at scale, it positions fibre bottles as more than an interesting sustainability experiment. It positions them as a serious manufacturing proposition.
Commercial Scale, Not Clever Prototypes, Is the Real Test
One of the more telling aspects of the Bottle Collective is how the project has been structured.
PA Consulting’s early, self-funded development work helped de-risk the concept, build initial prototypes and generate enough confidence to bring major brand owners into the fold. Just as importantly, the group involved equipment and filling-line specialists such as Logoplaste and Krones at an early stage.
That matters because packaging innovation often falters when a good concept collides with production reality. It is one thing to make a promising prototype in a controlled setting. It is another to ensure it can run on real lines, meet filling requirements, protect the product and do so economically.
The thinking here has been refreshingly practical. Rather than trying to invent every part of the process from scratch, the Collective has drawn on specialist engineering partners to avoid what might politely be called innovation theatre.
Its immediate focus is to ensure the first production line can reach up to 20 million bottles annually, creating a credible platform for broader rollout later.
There is still a thin plastic liner in the bottle design, but crucially it is not bonded to the fibre shell. That improves the prospect of separation during recycling and allows the pack to work with many existing mechanical recycling processes.
In some cases, the pressure applied during kerbside collection may even be enough to separate the liner from the outer fibre layer. That said, infrastructure remains inconsistent by geography, and this is still an area the Collective is actively working through.
Diageo’s Trials Show Promise, but Also Reveal the Real-World Challenges
Diageo’s recent trials have given the concept far more than a lab-based credibility boost.
In 2024, the company ran a consumer trial using mini bottles of Baileys packaged in a bottle made from 90% paper, a 9% thin plastic liner and a 1% foil seal. Consumer reaction was encouraging, with 86% saying that the paper-led composition felt like an important and positive move by the brand.
Yet the trial also exposed one of the recurring hurdles facing alternative packaging: recycling clarity. Even when consumers like the concept, confusion around how to dispose of multi-material formats can quickly undermine the experience.
A later trial between September and October 2024 pushed the technology further with Johnnie Walker Black Label. This 70cl paper bottle again used a 90% paper structure with a very thin plastic liner, but the technical leap was more substantial.
The design retained the whisky brand’s iconic square profile, while introducing premium detailing such as faceted sides and embossed branding. It was also around 60% lighter than a glass equivalent and delivered almost half the CO2e.
For spirits, however, lightweight packaging alone is not enough. Alcohol is heavily regulated, and even small losses in mass can affect proof levels and put products on the wrong side of compliance. That meant extensive testing for alcohol loss, flavour integrity and overall quality.
By all accounts, the fibre bottle had to pass the same sensory scrutiny as any new glass format, and it did.
This is where the story becomes more than a packaging headline. It becomes a lesson in how serious food and drink innovation actually works. It is not driven by attractive claims alone, but by the unglamorous discipline of proving that the product remains stable, compliant and true to brand.
Why Fibre Packaging Matters for Food Manufacturing and Food Production
For food manufacturing and food production, the advance of fibre-based bottles could be significant.
If scalable, these formats offer the possibility of reducing packaging weight, cutting transport emissions, lowering reliance on virgin plastics and linking more effectively into established paper recovery streams. They could also encourage manufacturers to rethink line design, materials sourcing and pack formats in ways that support a more circular production model.
At the same time, this shift will place new demands on producers. Manufacturing systems must adapt to new materials, quality controls must remain airtight, and packaging innovation cannot come at the expense of shelf life, flavour, safety or the consumer experience.
In other words, the opportunity is real, but so is the operational challenge. For manufacturers, the winners are likely to be those who treat sustainability not as a branding layer, but as an engineering and production discipline.
Matcha Goes Mainstream as Brands Race to Claim Space
While packaging teams work on long-horizon transformation, product developers are chasing a faster-moving opportunity: matcha.
What was once seen as a niche wellness cue has now become a serious area of innovation in both the United Kingdom and the United States, with brands moving quickly to establish relevance across drinks, snacking and multiple retail channels.
Alpro’s latest move is especially notable. The brand has launched what it says is the UK’s first ready-to-drink matcha product made with a soya-coconut base. The 1L ambient drink combines green tea matcha with a plant-based base that can be foamed and enjoyed hot or cold, giving it a clear at-home barista angle.
Fortified with calcium, iodine and vitamins B9, D2 and B2, it is aimed squarely at afternoon consumption, where the brand says 80% of matcha occasions currently sit.
The commercial rationale is easy to see. Tea and ready-to-drink formats reportedly rose from 5% of the matcha market in 2023 to 12% in the first ten months of 2025, while younger consumers are showing particular interest.
Alpro points to 72% of green-tea drinkers under 35 now opting for hot matcha beverages. In that context, a ready-to-pour format designed for Gen Z and Millennial routines feels less like a punt and more like a calculated step into a fast-forming habit.
Priced at £2.75 and stocked in Sainsbury’s, with wider rollout planned across major UK and Republic of Ireland retailers by June, the launch also reflects how quickly matcha is moving from specialist cafés into mainstream grocery.
PerfectTed, Lantern and Forest Feast Broaden the Matcha Opportunity
PerfectTed is also expanding aggressively. Its ready-to-drink Matcha Latte range now includes Blueberry Matcha Latte and Original Matcha Latte, following strong early traction for Vanilla and Strawberry.
With more than 35,000 store listings across 50 countries, the brand is no longer operating as a niche insurgent. It is behaving like a business intent on turning matcha into an everyday convenience purchase.
Both new drinks are oat-based and made with so-called ceremonial grade matcha, a useful marketing shorthand for premium quality, even if the term itself is not formally regulated.
Each can contains 60mg of matcha caffeine, roughly equivalent to a single espresso, and avoids refined sugar, artificial sweeteners and synthetic caffeine. After an initial exclusive launch in Whole Foods Market, the range is rolling into Waitrose from 8 April 2026.
In the US, Lantern is bringing a different format to the category with shelf-stable Matcha Soda. Made with ceremonial-grade Japanese matcha, organic cane sugar and natural flavours, the product is designed to bridge the gap between rising consumer interest and limited access to approachable, non-dairy matcha drinks.
Its two-format rollout is especially strategic: a 187ml glass Ramune bottle for foodservice, cafés and specialist outlets, and a 250ml can for grocery, convenience and mass retail. It is a smart reminder that innovation is not only about flavour, but also about channel fit.
Forest Feast, meanwhile, is taking matcha into snacking with Matcha Chocolate Almonds. The almonds are coated in white chocolate blended with PerfectTed matcha and launched in both 120g and 40g formats, priced at £3.95 and £1.45 respectively.
The larger pack has landed in Sainsbury’s, with Boots to follow on 4 May, while the smaller format is already in Dunnes Stores in the Republic of Ireland and heads to Tesco from 18 May.
The common thread across all of these launches is clear. Matcha is no longer being treated as a fringe flavour with social media buzz. It is being engineered into scalable formats, mainstream retail plans and broader lifestyle positioning.
The Matcha Boom Reflects a Wider Shift in Consumer Behaviour
Part of matcha’s appeal is that it sits at the intersection of several consumer priorities.
It carries a wellness halo, offers a gentler caffeine story than coffee, looks contemporary on shelf and on screen, and works across plant-based, convenience and premiumisation trends. That makes it unusually flexible from a commercial point of view.
It also speaks to how product innovation now travels. Once a flavour or ritual begins to gain cultural traction, brands move quickly to interpret it for different occasions: ambient cartons, canned lattes, sodas, snacks and foodservice formats.
The speed of those responses is no accident. It reflects a market where being early enough to feel fresh, but credible enough to stay, is increasingly the name of the game.
UK-Japan Organic Equivalency Opens a Fresh Export Door
Away from packaging and trend-led innovation, the Government has delivered a more structural development for the food sector.
The UK and Japan have now formally recognised the equivalency of each other’s organic livestock standards, a move that cuts red tape and gives British producers access to Japan’s growing organic market using a single UK certification.
For exporters, this is precisely the kind of policy shift that can turn a difficult market into a realistic one. Businesses will no longer need to navigate what had previously been a significant barrier in order to sell organic livestock products into Japan.
According to Government messaging, the removal of this hurdle is expected to unlock millions in additional trade each year.
The agreement came into force earlier this month and covers a substantial product scope. That includes organic certified beef, lamb, pork and chicken, processed meats such as bacon, sausages, hams and cured meats, dairy products including butter, cheese, yoghurt, milk powders and processed eggs, as well as processed foods containing animal ingredients, including pet food.
Japan is hardly a minor prize. It is the world’s fifth-largest economy and was valued as Asia’s second-largest organic market at an estimated £1.4 billion in 2023. With domestic initiatives in Japan promoting greater organic consumption, the market is seen as a fast-growing opportunity for premium imported products.
Calon Wen and the Export Opportunity for British Producers
Among those eyeing the opportunity is Calon Wen, the Welsh organic dairy co-operative.
For a farmer-owned business like this, the agreement is more than diplomatic housekeeping. It creates access to prospects that had previously been out of reach, including organic business tenders worth significant annual trade.
That could prove especially valuable for premium British dairy and meat producers looking for export markets where provenance, quality and certification genuinely matter. It also comes at a time when the UK organic market itself remains resilient.
The sector grew by 4.2% in 2025 to reach £3.9 billion in retail value, continuing a growth pattern that the Government says has held since 2012, despite pressure from the cost-of-living crisis.
The deal also builds on the UK’s wider organic equivalency arrangement with Japan and follows a similar agreement for alcoholic drinks reached in September last year. In short, it does not stand alone. It forms part of a broader effort to make British food and drink exports more competitive in premium international markets.
Conclusion: Innovation Is Getting More Serious, and That Is Good News for the Industry
What links fibre bottles, matcha launches and organic export agreements is not simply that they are all newsworthy. It is that each reflects an industry becoming more serious about what progress really requires.
PulPac, PA Consulting and Diageo are showing that sustainable packaging only becomes meaningful when it can satisfy engineering, regulation, consumer usability and production scale all at once.
Alpro, PerfectTed, Lantern and Forest Feast are proving that cultural trends such as matcha can move quickly from niche enthusiasm into substantial commercial platforms. And the UK-Japan organic livestock deal shows how government policy can meaningfully widen the runway for British producers with premium credentials.
For the food industry, this is not a moment for surface-level optimism. It is a moment for practical ambition. The businesses most likely to shape the next phase of the market will be those willing to experiment, but disciplined enough to make those experiments work in the real world.
That is where new norms are formed, and where the most valuable growth tends to begin.
News Credits:
Paper‑based bottles at scale are drawing closer
Matcha mania: The latest wave of green tea NPD
UK strikes lucrative organic livestock deal with Japan
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