Circularity Scotland has announced £22 million-worth of support measures to help brewers, distillers, importers and drinks manufacturers prepare for the introduction of Scotland’s deposit return scheme.
The package includes:
- Up front charges removed for lower sales volumes
- Improved payment terms for lower sales volumes
- Simple labelling option for niche products, alleviating administrative burden
Circularity Scotland is the organisation administering Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme, which goes live in August.
It says the support package is particularly designed to help SMEs, who have previously voiced concerns about the impact of the scheme on their business’ cashflow.
To address these concerns, Circularity Scotland is removing the day one and month one charges for all producers, up to a threshold of three million units per year. It is also providing two month credit terms on deposits and fees up to the same volume threshold to reduce the working capital impact on all producers.
The three million unit threshold has been established to ensure that the thousands of smaller scale producers selling in Scotland benefit more proportionately from the cashflow support.
This, Circularity Scotland says, will particularly help companies such as craft brewers, wine importers and craft spirit producers. The two month credit terms will be made available to all producers, regardless of their size, ensuring all producers within the scheme are treated equally.
Circularity Scotland has also confirmed that it will be offering the option to use self-adhesive barcode labels for producers placing less than 25,000 units per year of a specific product on to the Scottish market.
The organisation says this will provide “a simple and straightforward administrative solution for independent producers and importers for whom the cost of changing packaging to introduce new barcodes could be prohibitive”.
Read the full announcement on the Circularity Scotland website here.
