Ball and Lofoten Arctic Water design award-winning aluminum bottles in Norway DRS boost

14 Jan 2021 --- Lofoten Arctic Water, a Norway-based natural water beverage company, is launching a range of aluminum bottles made by Ball in efforts to increase the recyclability and maintain low product temperature. The duo has already won several awards for their work. 

The Lofoten Islands are located north of the Arctic Circle. The archipelago forms a rugged landscape of mountain peaks rising directly from the sea. Lofoten Arctic Water is a unique product of this environment, not requiring filtering or distillation.

Speaking to PackagingInsights, a Lofoten Arctic Water spokesperson says “We chose aluminum for its environmental performance, aesthetic qualities and ability to keep our beverage protected from light and air. Aluminum cans are widely recycled, at an average of 76% in Europe, rising to 95 percent in Norway and 99 percent in Germany.” 

“Ball’s Alumi-Tek bottle offered our designers a stylish 360-degree canvas which they embraced, winning Zenith Global Water and Penta design awards. As a premium water, we know that our customers value the pristine quality of the water.” 

The aluminum bottles are recyclable through Norway’s deposit return scheme.The water is renewed by glacial melt and snow all year from the surrounding mountains and from pure rain during the summer months.

Renowned as a distinctly pure source of freshwater, the local environment already serves the 5,000 inhabitants of Lofoten. The Lofoten Arctic Water team’s goal is to bring this experience of fresh, pure water to consumers worldwide. 

The water is also very soft – meaning it has low mineral content.

The bottles are initially launching in Norway, France, Germany, Taiwan and the UK, with further countries currently in development.

The aluminum answer 
Located near the Norwegian Sea, the Lofoten Arctic Water team sought a new packaging solution that would avoid microplastic waterway pollution and conserve natural resources, it says.The company wants to bring Lofoten's water to the rest of the world.

The company chose Ball’s Alumi-Tek aluminum bottles for its still and sparkling arctic water because the bottles can be recycled repeatedly and with no loss of quality, enabling better circularity than plastic alternatives. 

Ivar Williksen, CEO of Lofoten Arctic Water, explains the key benefits aluminum adds to the products. 

“We chose the aluminum bottle for several reasons: the pure water chills faster, the bottles work brilliantly on the go and aluminum recycles forever.” 

“With the screw-off and screw-on cap, our consumers can drink as much or as little as they want. When the bottle is empty, the consumer may choose to refill and reuse the bottle or, of course, recycle it.”

The bottles also conform to the Nordics’ highly efficient deposit return schemes, including reverse vending machines, where consumers can ensure empties make it back into the system to be recycled. 

Metal recycles forever
To reinforce the recyclability of the package, each aluminum bottle carries the Metal Recycles Forever mark – which, in a recent YouGov survey, is more easily understood and trusted by consumers than other green messaging. 

The bottles feature blue, white and red colors, recalling the Norwegian flag. 

They also recently won “Best Natural Still” and “Best Natural Sparkling” waters at the 2020 Zenith Global Water Drinks Awards, together with the “Best in Can” packaging award. This follows a Silver at the recent Penta Awards for the new aluminum bottle design.

The announcement follows the news last year that Ball earned the Aluminum Stewardship Initiative (ASI) certification for all 23 of its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) beverage can plants. 

Edited 

By Louis Gore-Langton