Enhancing Sustainability and Functionality with Modern, 100% Recycled Neue Water Bottles

Background

It was when consulting for a luxury fashion brand that NEUE Water’s founder, Michael Lowers, noticed a problem for the fabulous woman visiting the atelier studio. The bottled water on offer didn’t fit their handbag. Looking further, he noticed that nothing on the market did, and that is where the idea for NEUE Water was born. The vision Michael had was to create a luxury water bottle brand that would cater to today’s on-the-go lifestyle while enhancing the style and sustainability of traditional water bottles.

Challenge

Determined to help consumers hydrate consciously, in-style, and on the go, Michael needed a fully recyclable, transparent bottle that would magnify label designs from talented artists while fitting easily into small spaces such as crossbody bags. While recycled PET (rPET) offers the necessary properties to develop a transparent and recyclable bottle, the material’s strength and stiffness create considerable resistance to force, making it challenging to create distinctive bottle shapes.

As a startup, NEUE needed a partner with the material science, design, and manufacturing expertise required to deliver an innovative rPET bottle without compromising unique aesthetic requirements while meeting their specific production volume needs.

Solution

To achieve a functional, stylish, and sustainable water bottle, NEUE partnered with Berry Agile Solutions to access the benefits of a full-service provider, including global in-house material science, design, and manufacturing expertise, and strong local collaborations to ensure accessible quantities and fast delivery times.

Together, we created a first-of-its-kind flat-shaped, luxury artesian mineral water bottle made from 100% recycled content that overcomes the design limitations of rPET. The new bottle design provides a convenient on-the-go solution for consumers by fitting into small spaces such as cross-body bags, back pockets, and seat-back storage on trains and planes. NEUE also features an uninterrupted convex window on one side that magnifies the label area for limited-edition artist labels to deliver an eye-catching product on the shelf.

Results

NEUE Water’s 100% recycled PET (rPET) design eliminates the use of virgin plastic, thereby reducing carbon emissions compared to traditional mineral water bottles. Within a week of launching at Harrods, NEUE Water sold out and has since received multiple awards, including gold for design at the Fine Water Society’s annual Taste and Design Awards, an InnoBev award for packaging design, a Good Brand Award from Sublime Magazine for Advancing Social & Environmental Sustainability, and a prestigious Red Dot Award for product design.

*100% recycled content claim only applies to the bottle and not the cap