中文A 20p coin that could reshape an entire industry
Here is a number worth burning into your memory: 20p. From 1 October 2027, anyone in the UK who buys a drink in an eligible can or plastic bottle will pay a 20p deposit on top, handed back when the empty container is returned. Simple for the shopper. Catastrophic if your business is not ready.
That is the heart of the UK’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), and the people responsible for delivering it are starting to sound like firefighters telling you the building is already smoking. “This will be the biggest change that we’ve seen in the UK since kerbside recycling started,” said Julian Hunt, the industry-nominated Non-Executive Director at Exchange for Change, the body running the scheme. “It’s on that scale of change.”
The clock is louder than you think
At London Packaging Week this September, a panel called “DRS countdown: from 2026 readiness to 2027 reality” will gather the people closest to the rollout: Hunt himself, Andy Bagnall of the British Soft Drinks Association, Ellena Andrews of the Food and Drink Federation, Naomi Brandon-Bravo of the British Retail Consortium, and Tom Fiennes, Sustainability Director at Carlsberg Britvic.
The session, set for Wednesday 16 September on the FMCG Stage, is a 45-minute reality check. The panel will talk about current readiness, the work still to come in the next 12 months, and what “success” should look like in year one. If you make, fill, package, or sell drinks, that is the room you wish you were in.
Behind the friendly 20p proposition sits a beast of a transformation. New barcodes. Reverse vending machines. Retail return infrastructure. Logistics. Counting systems. Consumer behaviour change on a national scale. “The responsibility is really on the producers,” Hunt warned. “They will need to work closely in partnership with their suppliers to get ready because there’s going to be a lot of work around changing packaging.”
Why this is bigger than a bottle
Hunt has been on the DRS journey for most of the past decade, and he is blunt about the scale. Exchange for Change itself is effectively a start-up that began 2025 with little more than a mandate and now has a Milton Keynes base, a leadership team, and more than 60 people racing toward the October 2027 launch. “The timetable for delivery of DRS was always going to be challenging, but it’s achievable,” he said. “We’ve got a team of more than 60 in place.”
But his message to businesses is the part that should keep packaging managers awake: do not treat October 2027 as the starting line. The work — changing packaging, branding, and barcodes — has to happen before go-live. And managing the transition from existing non-DRS stock to the new system adds yet another layer of complexity.
The panel’s breadth says it all. You cannot deliver DRS with one company. You need scheme operators, drinks producers, food and drink manufacturers, and retailers all moving in lockstep. Exchange for Change is already working with more than 50 trade associations and industry bodies, and leaning on experience from DRS operators across Europe.
What “success” actually looks like
Strip away the strategy decks and Hunt’s definition of success is almost touching in its simplicity: a consumer buys a drink, pays the deposit, returns the empty, gets 20p back. “We’ve got to make sure it’s convenient. We’ve got to make sure it works. We’ve got to make sure it’s really easy for consumers from day one and then keep improving that experience after go-live.”
That is the whole deal. If returning a bottle is annoying, the scheme fails. If it is effortless, recycling rates climb and the investment pays off. No pressure.
What you should be doing right now
If your company touches a drinks container, the countdown is already expensive. Practical moves:
- Audit your SKUs. Which packages fall inside DRS? Which barcodes, labels, and formats need to change?
- Talk to your suppliers now. Hunt is explicit that producers must partner with suppliers early. Waiting for a 2027 panic is how companies miss the window.
- Plan the stock transition. How will you burn down non-DRS inventory before go-live without waste or fines?
- Watch PackUK too. The same London Packaging Week agenda covers the next stages of Extended Producer Responsibility. DRS is not the only reform landing.
The uncomfortable truth is that most businesses underestimate this. It feels like a small deposit on a can. It is, in reality, one of the largest coordinated changes to UK packaging and recycling in a generation. The companies that treat 2027 like a deadline they can still influence — not a storm they must simply survive — are the ones that will still be on shelf when it arrives.
Source: WhatTheyThink — “UK Packaging Leaders to Discuss DRS Readiness as 2027 Countdown Gathers Pace” (9 September 2026).
