New bottling machine increases production capacity and speed more than fivefold, enabling drinks brands to scale lower-carbon packaging at industrial levels, while significantly reducing costs.

British sustainable packaging company Frugalpac has today unveiled a high-speed new machine that dramatically increases the production of its paper Frugal Bottles, enabling drinks brands, fillers and packaging partners to scale up.

The launch comes as the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation warned that the Earth’s climate is increasingly out of balance, with greenhouse gas emissions driving accelerating warming.[1]

The new Frugal Bottle Assembly Machine 2 (FBAM-2) is a scalable platform capable of producing 14 million paper bottles a year – more than five times the capacity of its predecessor, which produces up to 2.5 million annually [2].

Designed for installation at bottling plants and packaging facilities worldwide, the FBAM-2 allows partners to manufacture Frugal Bottles at scale, closer to filling lines, reducing cost, carbon and supply chain risk. Its flexible multi-lane options allow for both smaller and significantly larger production volumes.

Frugalpac, a King’s Award-winning cleantech company based in Suffolk, launched the Frugal Bottle in 2020. Still the world’s first and only commercially available paper bottle for wines, spirits and edible oils. It is made from 100% recycled paperboard.

Driving Costs Down
With the FBAM-2, the Frugal Bottle is now up to 30% lower cost than the current paper bottles and as energy prices are increasing at pace, the Frugal Bottle is not just a sustainable choice but a smart economic one.

The launch of FBAM-2 marks a significant advancement for the drinks industry, where demand for lower-carbon packaging is accelerating but production capacity has remained a bottleneck.

Until now, the rollout of paper bottles has been limited by manufacturing scale. FBAM-2 removes that constraint, enabling millions more bottles to be produced annually at a single site.

This opens the door for:

  • Large-scale brand adoption
  • Multi-market rollouts
  • Integration into existing bottling operations

Industry under pressure
The launch comes as the global drinks sector faces mounting pressure from multiple directions.

Glass production requires furnaces operating permanently, at temperatures of around 1,500°C, and supply chains have been hit in recent years by energy shocks, rising costs and material shortages.

At the same time, new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules across the UK, Europe and other markets mean companies are increasingly charged for the environmental cost of their packaging, with heavier materials like glass among the most expensive.

Retailers are also turning their attention to packaging as a major source of emissions. Alcoholic drinks are now the largest contributor to supermarket packaging impact, accounting for roughly 33% of all environmental impacts in the grocery aisle (Source IGD).

[1]World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2025 – https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/earths-climate-swings-increasingly-out-of-balance
[2] 14m unit output when FBAM-2 is in its standard three lane configuration.

For more information visit https://frugalpac.com