Meadow, a Sweden-based company, has embarked on a journey to transform one-time-use packaging solutions into sustainable ones for a circular economy. The brand’s latest innovation, a refillable end and dispenser system for aluminium beverage cans, is making headlines for its infinite recyclability.
Meadow’s beverage can cartridge follows the usual 330 ml configuration and is made of 100 per recyclable aluminium. This aligns individual users with the company’s goals of transforming the environment into a carbon emission-free zone.
Meadow was founded by Nick Paget, Peder Stubert and Victor Ljungberg with a mission to switch all the one-time-use items with sustainable, refillable alternatives. Meadow has a product portfolio inspired by nature, and what can be more commendable than using aluminium, an infinitely recyclable non-ferrous metal. Once used in a product, the aluminium can be resourced, melted and reused as a fresh raw material to create new items, automatically creating a loop.
One of the co-founders, Nick Paget, commented: “We have extensive in-house and partnership expertise in industrial design, user research, equipment design and mechanical engineering. As a result, we were able to take this project to the point of fidelity that demonstrated proof of concept and buy-in from consumers and FMCG clients.”
“Recognising the complex precision engineering that is required in the metal packaging process, we quickly acknowledged that we did not have the metal forming expertise and measurement know-how to achieve the accuracy and repeatability we needed to validate the end design. With this in mind, we reached out to industry specialists to utilise the existing infrastructure available,” he added.
To enhance its internal capabilities, Meadow has been utilising CDL’s 202 optimised shell as the base of its end. Then it was through CDL that Meadows got the recommendation of signing DRT Holdings for the development of its score residual panel geometry. This step would validate the company’s products and certify them as production standards.
The DRT Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Will Hoffman, narrated: “As the world’s largest high-precision tooling supplier globally, DRT is delighted to provide Meadow with an end solution that can be made at scale for the consumer market.”
“With a history of innovation, having developed the integral rivet for Easy Open Ends in 1959, we have revolutionised the way consumers have interacted with food and beverages, and we’re excited to be part of another exciting innovation in the metal packaging industry, this time in the personal care market,” he went on to explain.
Meadow has initialised a 12-month development project with the help of DRT for a solely owned end and dispenser system project.
Co-founder, Victor Ljungberg, began to elaborate: “Together with DRT, we have agreed on a project that ironically removes the integral rivet (the feature they invented) and replaces it with a score residual that is opened using a proprietary dispensing system, compatible with industry-standard lotion pumps.”
“We have developed the dispensing system alongside DRT for consumers to purchase once and use time and time again by refilling the infinitely recyclable cartridge. The dispensing system introduces a new user experience to the personal care market that celebrates that uniqueness of the beverage can,” he concluded.
Besides formulating the end and dispenser system, Meadow is working relentlessly in collaboration with machinery manufacturers and leading coating specialists to discover new auxiliary solutions.
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