The most renowned light weight neck standard recently established is the PCO 1881. PCO 1881 has been developed within the International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT) which via its very structured approach lead to a neck design well accepted by the most and the major market players. PCO 1881 is a neck designed for carbonated beverages like soft drinks or water.
Numerous closure designers and manufacturers offer solutions suitable for PCO 1881. BERICAP offers 5 different generic closure designs for PCO 1881, one of which is DoubleSeal™ SuperShorty® Eco (DS SuS eco). The DS SuS Eco weighs only 2,1g and is applied on carbonated beverages with up to 8g CO2/ltr. since more than 12 months. The closure performed well also during the very hot summer 2010, showed excellent sealing performance and CO2-retention. The tamper evidence band breaks safely due to its flex band design. Application performance is comparable with PCO 1810 solution, if the capping process has been adjusted properly.
BERICAP offers for still beverages filled in bottles with PCO 1881 neck finish the DoubleSeal™ SuperShorty® Still (DS SuS Still) which offers the antisabotage feature and can be applied with same chucks as DS SuS eco. Due to market request BERICAP has developed numerous custom designed closures for PCO 1881.
Lightweight Closures for Still Water
The industry has established parallel to PCO 1881 the neck standards PET 29/25 and PET 26/22 for still beverages, especially still water. Both neck standards have meanwhile been accepted by CETIE as European neck standards.
PET 29/25 is currently rolled out mainly in Europe and neighbouring regions whereby PET 26/22 finds high acceptance in all regions of the world.
As for PCO 1881 numerous closure designers and manufacturers offer closure solutions for PET 29/25 and PET 26/22.
BERICAP offers the HexaLite® product range for PET 29/25 and PET 26/22. HexaLite® is equipped with a sealing design to ensure excellent tightness and a folded tamper evidence band which is close to impossible to take off and hence provides high product integrity.
60.000 Tons of CO2 Reduction per Annum
| BERICAP will have converted by the end of Q1/2011 more than 50% of its beverage closure capacity to light weighted closures for light weighted necks. The resin savings result in up to 60.000t of CO2 emission reduction every year. |
BERICAP has developed together with industry partners a light weight 33mm neck and the suitable screw cap DoubleSeal™ 33. Neck and closure weigh together less than 6g.
The 33mm solution is targeted at on-the-go packs for juices, energy drinks and teas. It is also a solution for larger bottle sizes for juices and milk when light weighting is an important target.
The 33mm neck size allows besides light weighting a distinction of the product on the shelf. In addition the diameter 33mm provides and better drinking comfort for the consumer as above mentioned studies have shown.
DoubleSeal™ 33 is equipped with a folded tamper evidence band for safe breaking and a specific design of the sealing lip for tight sealing to ensure product integrity. DoubleSeal™ 33 can be well decontaminated with all standard decontamination methods known in the market for aseptic filling.
Garcia Garrion is the first customer who selected DoubleSeal™ 33. One of the main targets was weight saving, but to keep at the same time product appearance distinct on the shelf.
Hotfill Application gain more Interest
| Juices, sports drinks and ice teas are in numerous countries bottled in the hotfilling process rather than aseptically filled. There is an underlying trend to lighter neck and closure solutions also in hotfill bottles. The 43mm hotfill neck finish wide spread in North America is about to be replaced by 38mm hotfill neck finish. There are numerous proposals for reducing the weight of the existing 38mm hotfill necks. |
After market introduction in Europe and China in 2004 the interest in one-piece closures for hot filling is recently encountering a growing interest. Latest market introductions were a DoubleSeal™ 28 for hot filled tea with a large international beverage bottler in Russia and a DoubleSeal™ 38 with Juhayna in Egypt.
One-piece closure technology for hotfilled bottles provides a lower weight solution than comparable two-piece closure solution and avoids the costly liner of two-piece closures. In addition a one-piece closure vents only after unscrewing the closure at more than 90° angle. In contrast two-piece closures vent already after a very few degrees opening angle caused by accidental opening or natural back-off which represents a risk of fermented product before consumption.
BERICAP offers besides 38mm and 28mm further diameters for the hotfill market and is developing further options to light weight hotfill closures and necks.
Sports Closures enjoy increasing Acceptance
The modern consumer requires besides beverages with screw caps drinking comfort for some part of his daily beverage consumption. This drinking comfort is provided with sports caps. BERICAP offers the 2-piece Thumb-up and the 3-piece Push-Pull. All sportscaps pass child safety regulations by BSDA. Both sportscap variant exist for numerous neck diameters and suitable for cold and aseptic filling.
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| Karina Dingebauer Communication & Marketing Tel. +49 (0)6139 29 02 0 Fax +49 (0)6139 29 02 188 karina.dingebauer@bericap.com |
