Many producers of juices and nectars choose PET containers because of the considerable advantages which the material offers – in particular, greater safety, lighter weight, lower cost and a smaller environmental impact than glass. At the same time, the ability to mould PET containers in a wide variety of shapes and colours (including a clear, highly transparent format) offers the potential for high shelf appeal in a material which gives good shelf life.
Safety
Many sporting and entertainment events now permit drinks to be served only in PET bottles or plastic cups because of health and safety concerns about other packaging formats. PET bottles are preferred by retailers at these venues because it avoids the process of having to pour drinks into plastic cups, making service faster and giving consumers something that is resealable and easier to carry.
PET bottles are virtually impossible to break and, even when crushed, they have no sharp edges. For brand owners, shippers and retailers (as well as for end users) the integrity of PET bottles means no losses from breakage.
Using PET can also offer health and safety benefits. There is no risk, for example, of production failures leading to sharp edges on containers or sharp fragments contaminating products.
PET is a strong and inert material that does not react with foods, is resistant to attack by micro-organisms and will not biologically degrade. It does not contain bisphenol-A (BPA) or phthalates (plasticisers).
Food safety agencies and regulatory authorities around the world – including the European Food Safety Authority and the USA Food and Drug Administration – approve PET for beverage and food packaging.
Weight
A typical PET juice bottle weighs only around 15 per cent as much as a typical glass bottle of the same volume. This means that transport costs for juices and nectars packed in PET can be substantially lower than for the same products in glass bottles – and so can the environmental impact of the transport.
We have been involved in several projects with leading brand owners aimed at ‘lightweighting’ bottles to maximise the weight benefits of the PET packaging format – and also providing economic and environmental benefits through reduced materials use.
Environmental impact
Studies have shown that producing PET containers results in less greenhouse gas emissions and uses less energy than producing glass containers.
Petainer is leading the way in further reducing the environmental impact of PET packaging for juices and nectars.
As well as developing new designs and technologies that permit the weight of the containers to be reduced – therefore cutting materials consumed as well as reducing transport impacts – we are increasingly using recycled PET for container manufacture. We can now produce containers made from 100 per cent recycled material and all PET containers are fully recyclable.
The use of refillable PET bottles has all the environmental advantages implicit in the material combined with benefits arising from the bottle being reused up to 25 times in its lifetime, prior to being recycled in a ‘closed loop’ where the material is used to create new containers. Where systems and facilities for this type of reuse and recycling exist, this is a highly sustainable packaging technology.
Petainer is the market leader in refillable technologies in Western Europe and Scandinavia and we are working closely with many major brands to further improve the environmental performance of refillable containers.
Shelf life
The shelf life of a product depends on many factors. Where one of these is exposure to oxygen, PET can offer extended shelf life because of recent developments in barrier materials and technologies which keep oxygen out of the container – or even actively remove oxygen which is already present.
Where protection from light is important in extending shelf life, PET containers can be produced in highly opaque formats in a variety of colours.
Functionality
Petainer is able to support customers with containers suited to a wide variety of processing solutions including hot-fill and panelless technologies.
Shelf appeal
The container can be a key component of the brand identity in the highly competitive juices and nectars market.
The design flexibility of PET enables distinctive, eye-catching shapes to be created to help establish brand identity and product differentiation. Containers can also be produced in an almost infinite variety of colours – or in naturally clear material which displays the product inside. The scope is limited only by the imagination of the designer.
This permits bottles to be created which boost sales through their ‘shelf appeal’, grabbing the attention of shoppers.
Petainer has considerable expertise not just in the technology of PET bottle manufacture but also in understanding consumers. We undertake international market research to investigate the relationship between brands, products, packaging and purchasing. This expertise is available to our customers through our extensive consultancy services.
We undertake fully-informed ‘packaging audits’ for brand owners, identifying opportunities to introduce new packaging concepts. We have helped major brands introduce PET packaging in order to obtain functional, cost and sales benefits. Combining our expertise in ‘design for manufacture’ and ‘design for market’ produces sustainable, cost-effective packaging with real shelf appeal.
We have a passion for innovation and for taking new ideas from concept through to production.
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