PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2014

EDITOUR REPORT 13 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 04/14 www.petpla.net May 8, 2013 Coca Cola Industrias Ltda. Brazil We met: Paulo Roberto Villas, Head of Corporate Packaging - Supply Chain Lucas Angelo Amendola, Packaging Specialist SR Paulo Roberto Villas, Head of Corporate Packaging - Supply Chain It’s not only the Brazilian countryside that is “green“ Coca Cola Latin America is the region that boasts the biggest turnover in the Coca Cola Group. There are 40 countries representing the Group, including Mexico. The Group is divided up into four business units, of which one is Coca Cola Brazil. En route for Coca Cola Brazil, we make the first stop in Rio de Janeiro. At the headquarters of Coca Cola Brazil in Rio de Janeiro we are introduced to the man responsible for Packaging, Mr Paulo Roberto Villas, and packaging specialist Mr Lucas Angelo Amendola. Coca Cola Brazil is the second biggest business unit in the Latin America Group. There are 15 bottling groups with 45 bottling plants and a total of 93 PET filling lines author- ised to use the Coca Cola name under their Franchise Partner Principle. In Brazil alone the groups employ a total of 40,000 direct and 400,000 indirect employees. According to Paulo Roberto Villas, 12 billion litres are packaged each year (mainly of CSD), equal to a market share of 61%, using a particular method of operation which is regarded as a benchmark for the entire Coca Cola system. He explained: “Here in Brazil we monitor the overall supply chain from the polymer right through to the manufac- ture of the bottles and we are therefore very conscious of the impact we have on the environment and sustainability.” He went on: “We work in close cooperation and partner- ship with our suppliers. Together with them, we work on joint development projects, although at the end of the day Coca Cola becomes the owner of the product drawings. What this means is that all preform suppliers work with the same pre- form drawings from the “Coca Cola preform family“. Lightweighting In 2007, Coca Cola Brazil launched the first phase of their lightweighting programme for PET preforms keeping the PCO 1810 neck finish. However, before actually going into production, it was specified that the splitting lines in the injection mould also had to be suitable for PCO 1881. The idea behind this was to enable the mould to be rapidly con- verted, at reasonable cost, to the PCO 1881 format, which is significantly lighter in weight. In this way it was possible to introduce PCO 1881 finish step by step on the market. Nevertheless, lightweighting does not just apply to the neck finish, but a fresh look at the preform geometry itself was required. The reason is twofold: firstly, Brazil’s tropical conditions need to be taken into account and secondly, a shelf life guarantee is an essential requirement. It resulted in the 0.5l CSD preform: this weighs 20.6g and has a shelf life of 60 days (FTIR proven). The special features are a short preform with an aggressive stretch ratio which, by comparison to the Euro- pean variant (longer with smaller stretch ratio) weighs in at around 2g less. Paulo Roberto Villas still recalls the reaction of his colleagues in whose opinion the preform was very difficult to blow and not recommended for imple- mentation. Needless to say, for this preform, state of the art stretch blow moulding machines will be required which guarantee an optimal wall thickness distribution in the pre- form and are capable of working in the stretch blow mould- ing sector with a high crystallisation index. Only converters with the appropriate equipment are authorised by Coca Cola for this weight category. This also applies to the 2l contour bottle which, with a weight of 42.6g, also qualifies as lightweight under Brazilian specifi- cations. A further step towards the use of lightweight PET bottles lies in the optimisation of the entire stretch blow moulding and filling line. Usually bottle silos are installed between the stretch blow moulding machine and the filler; however, these are not suitable for lightweight PET bottles (risk of damage to bottles and the efficiency of the line suf- fering as a result). The solution is systems in block format. The first block format stretch blow/filler line was installed in 2010. Today there are already 14 block lines operating for Coca Cola Brazil. Paulo Roberto Villas again: “There is a state of the art block line in Andina, Coca Cola Rio de Janeiro, which has an hourly capacity of 39,200 2l PET contour bottles. This makes it, by some distance, the largest in the world (for the family size bottle) in 2011. Previously”, he went on, “just 20,000 2l bph was the maximum.” Another state of the art block line is currently operating at Amcor/Femsa in Jundiai Sao Paulo, where they are filling 72,000 600ml PET bottles per hour, making this facility one of the largest of its kind in the world. The plastic closure is also part of the overall picture. In Brazil, the company operates a partnership with Bericap do Brasil in Brazil to produce a reduced weight plastic closure in parallel with the lightweighting preform programme.