London-based Chilly’s Bottles was founded in 2010 by James Butterfield. He started distributing the reusable, plastic-free water bottles from home, and since then the business has grown rapidly. Tim Bouscarle joined as a partner in 2011 and the pair successfully crowdfunded for growth, and rebranded the product. Now achieving high volumes of orders with the bottles, the future plan is to grow the Chilly’s product range and continue to expand internationally.
Sold on their own website, marketplaces like Amazon and retailers including the RXUK Top500 Elite John Lewis, Chilly’s mission is to accelerate the adoption and everyday use of reusable products. They aim to do this through creating products for an active urban lifestyle, with the perfect balance of distinctive style and unrivalled performance.
Wanting to provide people with the ability to always have cold water on-the-go, without having to buy single-use plastic water bottles, the result was the Chilly’s Bottle. A modern and stylish product designed to combine the convenience of a plastic water bottle, with the high performance technology and eco-friendly benefits of a traditional flask.
An important part of the business is co-branding – Chilly’s products with your logo or message. Artwork will appear on the side opposite to the Chilly’s logo and while this increases sales it does introduce a complexity into production and distribution.
Chilly’s Bottles first contacted Asendia in early 2016, when they were looking for an affordable European fulfilment service to handle the pick and pack, and distribution for overseas orders. Chilly’s wanted a service that would save them time and hassle, and a company that could fulfil and distribute from one convenient location.
As the Chilly’s brand celebrates sustainability and re-use, so the company required a logistics partner with strong eco-credentials. Asendia achieved 100% carbon neutrality in January 2022. and all their international transport emissions are offset, including those of last-mile delivery partners, as well as parcel returns, building emissions, machinery and necessary business travel. This means every Chilly’s parcel shipment carried out by Asendia is 100% carbon neutral.
But distribution is just one part of the puzzle, there was also the requirement to fulfil co-branded products and so, having met Chilly’s core ecommerce fulfilment and distribution remit, today Ascendia’s Bedford site accommodates printing of bottles, and engraving for co-brand customers and personalised bottles.
The future for Chilly’s is really exciting. We’re looking to bring more manufacturing to the UK and Europe. Sustainability is at the heart of our brand, and Asendia being carbon neutral supports us enormously with that. We want to be the market leader in sustainability and helping reduce single use plastics wherever we can.
Working with Asendia has provided us with a whole new opportunity for the European market and beyond. We are partners in the truest sense of the word. We work together, we discuss ideas, we discuss our strategy and how we can deliver that strategy over the years to come. Having a high level of responsiveness and support from our dedicated account manager and the whole Asendia team frees up our time so we are able to focus on the aspects of the business we know best.
– Sarah Cokayne, Operations Director, Chilly’s
When looking at fulfilment, it’s easy to get distracted by promises of the most attractive rates and speedy dispatch, but Chilly’s wanted so much more beyond mere fulfilment. In Ascendia they have found a true business partner able to offer the same eco-credentials they have based their entire business on coupled with the added value services of printing and engraving.
Our journey with Chilly’s has been long and incredibly fast. While we probably started with two or three thousand orders a month, year-on-year we’ve seen that grow exponentially. In both our warehouse and through our distribution channels, we’re very proud to have kept pace with them.
– Carl Loader, Fulfilment Director, Asendia UK
