Listen: Why Lewis Road is changing to recycled plastic

Lewis Road Creamery is moving to completely recycled plastic bottles at the end of the month, which is a "big step" for the company says Peter Cullinane.

The founder of Lewis Road Creamery spoke to The Country's Jamie Mackay, saying although glass bottles are not completely out of the question, the company will stick with recycled plastic (called rPET) for the foreseeable future.

"We've looked at that, [glass bottles] and that's not discounted. It's just that we can't do that immediately and it requires a bottling plant to be glass compliant which is a huge undertaking ... and it also adds a lot of additional costs to the on-shelf bottle, but we think that glass will definitely be in our future."

Lewis Road Creamery's use of entirely recycled plastic is "something of a breakthrough," says Cullinane and although it does add another cost to the company, "long term it's the right thing to do."

Mackay points out that Lewis Road Creamery is a boutique company which caters to the top-end client, and wonders whether the rPET bottles will make a difference to everyday families buying milk.

Cullinane agrees that his company creates a more premium product, but this doesn't mean the technology won't be available to everyone in the future.

"My guess is that the expansion into this rPET plastic ... will start at the more premium end of the market and as volumes increase it will probably become more affordable for less expensive variants down the track."