THE days when goods arrived at Poole Quay by sailing ship returned yesterday when cosmetics company Lush brought a boatload of ingredients into the port.

The SV Gallant took four weeks to sail from Portugal, stopping in France and Belgium to collect more cargo bound for the company’s Dorset factory.

Lush is aiming to cut its carbon emissions by transporting more goods under sail.

Senior buyer Agnes Gendry said: “It’s not a PR or a marketing exercise. We are trialling it to see how we can expand this. Can we do more shipping every year on this type of boat?

“What goods can we put on board that work for us?”

Lush made contact last year with New Dawn Traders, which co-created the Sail Cargo Alliance to transport ethical goods by sailing ship.

“I came across them last year and we did one trial shipment. It worked absolutely fine and we wanted to do it again and try and increase the quantity we were shipping and this is what we’ve just done,” said Ms Gendry.

“There are no carbon emissions with a sailboat. Carbon emissions from shipping around the world are the same as the carbon emissions from air freight.”

The first shipment could not come to Poole because the port requires ships to have an engine to make the last part of the journey and moor.

Yesterday’s shipment included 11 tonnes of salt, Irish moss collected in France and 6,000 of the company’s cork pots, which are used to contain shampoo bars.

Nick Gumery, creative buyer for packaging at Lush, said the cork pots were made from bark stripped from trees in Portugal and left to grow back. The initiative created an income stream for farmers and helped birds and other wildlife flourish.

The pots could just be left in a garden when finished with or composted, he said. “Nature will be its recycling centre and it’s the direction we need to be going in for recycling generally,” he added.

Agnes Gendry said Lush would be looking to move more goods by wind-power. “This seems like a drop in the ocean but it’s something we can do,” she said.

“We’re very realistic about it and we know we’re not going to be able to ship everything this way overnight – but we need to be on that journey and address what can be done.”