Somerset Cider Vinegar can reassure all customers that our product is packed in containers made from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE).

HDPE is the highest specification (and the most expensive) plastic used for food packaging. It is leech resistant, and it is safe to store your cider vinegar in our containers.

Recycling HDPE Containers

HDPE is also the most cost-effective plastic for recycling and is accepted by all recycling centres. It is actually cheaper to make new containers from recycled HDPE that to make new plastic!

HDPE is popular with councils and recyclers because it is the plastic that produces the largest profit margin!

Concern over cheap containers

There has been concern in the press recently about the storage of food products in plastics that have been manufactured using a chemical called Bisphenol A (BPA).

This is a completely different product to HDPE and is popular with some companies because BPA is used to make plastic containers from polycarbonates which are much cheaper to manufacture.

Somerset Cider Vinegar has never packed our product, and never will pack our product, in plastics manufactured using BPA.

"BPA is used to make plastic containers from polycarbonates which are much, much cheaper to manufacture than HDPE containers."

The UK government does not have concerns about BPA packaging, saying that the tiny amounts of BPA that leach from packaging on foods like fruit juice are too tiny to be a problem. However, European legislators are working to limit the use of BPA.