Origin Materials continues commercial qualification and announces production of caps with new features
Origin Materials announced the production of PET caps with new features as commercial qualification continues. The latest caps were produced at the company’s partner’s facility in Germany on Origin’s CapFormer System, its proprietary system for manufacturing recyclable PET closures. The caps, made with recycled PET and designed for compatibility with the PCO 1881 standard, incorporate new features requested by customers following the successful factory acceptance test of the CapFormer System in September.
“The team has been working hard as we approach the end of the year, and we’ve stayed close to our prospective customers every step of the way. As a result, we decided to add a few key new features to our PET caps—chiefly, knurling,” said John Bissell, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Origin Materials. “Knurls improve the grip of the caps, making for a very comfortable consumer experience. The market spoke, and we listened. I am proud of our team’s agility in making it happen.”
The Origin CapFormer System is now being prepared for shipment to Reed City, Michigan, for installation. Further cap production is anticipated to begin in the first quarter of 2025.
“There are two primary advantages for producing these latest caps in Europe, before shipping the CapFormer System to its final home in Reed City,” said Bissell. “One, it lets us perform customer qualification while we ship the system. By working in parallel, we can go faster. Two, it enabled us to work very tightly with our European equipment partners while adding these new features, making for more efficient implementation.”
Bissell added: “Having added knurls and made a few other product refinements, such as changes that help our caps integrate better into existing capping machines and bottling lines, we’re now able to expand our customer qualification efforts. We’ve shipped the new caps for commercial qualification and our momentum with prospective customers remains strong and continues to build. In fact, today we’re happy to announce a new signed customer term sheet, alongside our previously announced MOU for over $100 million in PET caps over an initial two-year term. We are working hard to complete these qualifications so that Origin can begin fulfilling the awaiting customer demand.”
