The further evolution of juice bottles

Show the characteristics of beverage packaging materials application

Monopolistic processing, improved barrier layers, and easier-to-drink bottle size – this is a revolution in juice packaging from PET bottles. The evolution of soft drink packaging in two companies, Pampryl in France and Eckes-Granini in Germany, is sufficient to illustrate the development trend of beverage packaging.

According to reports, Pampryl, a French company that is a member of the Schweppes-Cadbury Group, used BP's Barex resin to produce its Pampryl brand fruit juice bottle for seven consecutive years. In 2003, this production was stopped and a new one was produced. Juice bottles and caps. Pampryl's production conversion also reflects the changes in the market in recent years. The move from glass, Barex resin or other materials to the production of PET bottles containing special barriers is a common trend in this market. Last summer, the German bottle company Eckes-Granini joined Pampryl's production of PET bottles and retained the company's glass bottle brand for blow-molded PET bottles.

Another obvious development trend is that the two companies decided to increase their blow-molded bottle production. Both parties purchased a multilayer PET barrier preform, AmGuard, from Amcor's PET bottle packaging plant in Belgium. Amcor uses nylon as the barrier layer for its 3-layer preform.

Market drives production conversion

In May 1996, Pampryl switched from its glass bottle production to the production of 11 extruded Barex plastic bottles. At the time, Pampryl stated that Barex had better barrier properties than PET and PVC. The Pampryl company's plant in Ney St. George, France, now monopolizes the production of AmGuard bottles with a set of Sidel SBO10 stretch blow molding equipment.

Caroline Herbst, Amcor's new product manager, said that there are many factors that have caused Pampryl to abandon the production of Barex bottles. Obviously, PET bottles are better than Barex bottles. Barex bottles are not as transparent as PET bottles, and Barex bottles are more expensive than PET bottles. Several times. In addition, the manager also talked about the AmGuard bottle's gas barrier performance over Barex bottles. We know that Barex is a rubber-modified copolymer of acrylonitrile and methacrylate that can be blow molded into single- or multi-layer packages to block chemicals and oxygen. Pampryl's senior management personnel are reluctant to disclose the reasons for the company's production transformation.

Barex executives have reservations about Pampryl's problems, but argue that Barex is a more suitable packaging material for juice. Amy Franken, Barex's marketing manager, said: “We see a Barex bottle with a single barrier to be stronger than a PET bottle, and Barex's inertness means it can't affect the taste of the beverage.” Another company executive Neil Quinn also admitted that this material has more application needs and is rapidly growing, for example for cosmetics and pharmaceutical packaging.

Pampryl was once the only manufacturer in Europe that used Barex to produce fruit juice beverage bottles. Quinn said that although Pampryl gave up the use of this material, another bottle manufacturer in Mexico, Jumex, began using this material to extrude a 1-liter capacity bottle.

Germany's Granini originally started producing blow-molded bottles with the Bind-Ox oxygen purification system containing Amcor, and now uses the newly developed Bind-Ox+ oxygen purification system. Pampryl also uses this improved oxygen purification system to produce its pre- Products. Herbst manager said that this new product line will be more difficult to layer.

Amcor claims that the middle layer of the PET bottle is a polyamide material, and the company has improved the bonding strength between the inner and outer layers of the PET bottle by adopting a new technology. However, he did not want to disclose details on how to do the technical treatment. He only mentioned the use of “a special coinjection method” when forming preforms. It is understood that its production cycle will not be affected as a result. Amcor withdraws from its production of the best-selling "hohes c" glass juice bottle in Europe, and uses a SIG Corpolast Blomax 18/III machine for stretch blow molding at its factory in Farring, Germany. Bottle production. According to reports, this device can produce 27,000 bottles per hour.

Bottle cap sales

The conversion made by Pampryl is consistent with the fact that Germany's Bericap switched from a foam-lined compression-molded bottle cap to a single injection-molded 38 mm three-threaded series.

Anne-Cedile Ropele, the new product sales manager at French company Bericap, said that they have obtained some business from other processors. Since the manufacturer decided to produce a new type of bottle, it must use a new bottle cap. The caps produced by the company are not molded with a blown neck, but rather are a sealing cap suitable for PET injection neck molding.

Anne-Cedile Ropele explained that Pampryl has benefited a lot from this. They use a filler tape to change from two joints to one joint. It is not necessary to add a sleeve after the lid. And this injection molded bottle cap allows a small amount of oxygen to infiltrate to extend the shelf life of the juice.

The German company Granini switched from its glass bottle twist cap to a sealed Bericap lid with the same size. Many bottle cap model experts said that this 38 mm specification is quite beneficial for beverage packaging. An executive from India’s Alcoa CSI Cap Model Company stated that as long as beverage bottles are more convenient to drink, consumers are willing to spend more money, and the slightly higher cost of the caps is not too important. Also, this bottle cap allows a certain amount of oxygen to enter the bottle, so that the taste and smell of the juice can be brought to the best state. Pietra Bauschke, sales manager at Amcor Whitecap Cap Models in Hannover, Germany, also agrees with this trend analysis.


Source: Foreign Plastics