Tranent entrepreneurs about to launch world's first reusable bottle made from plants

Jake Elliott-Hook and Amee Ritchie, of Tranent, have developed the world’s first reusable bottle made from plants.

A graduate of Queen Margaret University (QMU), Jake saw a gap in the market when his fellow students complained their water bottles ended up smelling and tasting of plastic or metal.

Jake, 24, told the Courier: “Everyone in my class had a reusable bottle and they all kept talking about how they only had them for a month or two and then they’d get smelly and they’d have to throw them away.

“I thought there must be another material that could be just as durable but also biodegrade, so we started looking for plant-based materials and we came across a bamboo and wheat straw mix that worked quite well.”

Jake, who studied psychology, and Amee, a beauty therapy graduate from Edinburgh College, researched and produced the new bottle, receiving support from QMU’s Business Innovation Zone and Business Gateway.

The pair even made it through to the finals of the Santander Universities ‘Emerging Entrepreneurs’ programme last September.

The S’wheat bottle uses excess bamboo which would otherwise be burnt as waste. It also utilises Scottish wheat straw and, though the bottles are currently made in China, Jake said they intended to move manufacture to the UK, hopefully next summer.

Photo: Vanessa Stirling-Hunter

For every sale, the company will ensure a tree is planted – and buyers will be able to track the growth of their tree.

Jake said: “Sustainability is the core value of S’wheat and it remains at the heart of everything we do.”

The bottle will be launched across social media platforms on May 19.

For information, see www.swheatbottle.com