Bonaqua Argentina switches from glass to PET
Bonaqua, the spring water of The Coca-Cola Company in Argentina has traditionally been bottled in a premium glass bottle for the on-premise market. For the water running a truck travel for more than 700km to its main market, the company was keen to create a premium glass-like PET bottle proposed to meet the long-haul trip in a huge country.
The development of the new premium packaging was entrusted to the blow mould manufacturer Moldintec. The company’s industrial design team worked closely with bottler’s engineers and TCCC’s Technical, marketing, and operations team to meet its branding requirements and operational efficiency of the existing bottling line.
Focused to keep the premium looked bottle, the main shape was conserved while also satisfying the mechanical requirements for a highspeed blowing-filling blocked hybrid glass/PET type line. Many other savings were captured by this master design principle due existing bottling tooling was adapted to the novel PET bottle.
To create a shiny effect, a high gloss polished blow mould jas been used, together with smooth surfaces and a perfect material distribution during the blowing process. A MonoBloc Shell mould type was chosen for this application.
Moving from a glass bottle to PET blow-fill process immediately translates into a multiplicity of savings. Starting with a lower bottle weight per unit, 24 grams on the PET version vs 263 grams of a glass bottle. The company also took advantage of this weight reduction increasing the bottle capacity by 100ml. The result is a lighter pallet with more liquid on it.
