PETINAR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 11/22 www.petpla.net 30 Review on the PETinar series: Technical highlights at Drinktec 2022, day 1 PETINAR Sponsors The series started with an introductory interview by Alexander Büchler, Publisher of PETplanet Insider with the Exhibition Director of the Drinktec trade fair, ‘Ms Drinktec’ Petra Westphal. The twenty-year cooperation between Drinktec and PETplanet gives an idea of how much both sides enjoyed exchanging ideas. After some remarkable memories such as the idea, development and implementation of the PETpoint hall at Drinktec, Petra Westphal delivered some hard facts about the upcoming Drinktec 2022. According to the fair’s data on visitor numbers, every third visitor comes from the dairy and liquid food industry, every fourth from the wine industry, whilst every second visitor comes from the beer sector. The majority of visitors represent the non-alcoholic beverage industry. Petra went on that the 1,001 exhibitors from 55 countries not only present their highlights across the entire value chain but also in relation to the four hot topics of the fair: sustainable production of packaging, water & water treatment, digital solution & digital transformation and finally consumer demand & consumer development. Petra stated that in the newly established innovation hubs, exhibitors would have the opportunity to present their best-case studies dealing with the four main topics of the fair. Despite the well-known very difficult circumstances such as the pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine conflict, 22 exhibitors from China and three from Ukraine are expected. Even though there would have been more representatives from these countries in a normal trade fair year, Petra gratified by the presence of the exhibitors who were now presenting their technologies. She closed with an invitation to the Drinktec 2022 and thanked PETplanet for the opportunity to present Drinktec at this special PETinar. More ECOnvenience After this positive introduction, Mr Thomas Schmidt, Group Marketing Director at Bericap, presented Bericap’s new sustainable and consumer-friendly closure solutions. Thomas briefly introduced Bericap: the quality-oriented family business is represented in 100 countries with 26 factories worldwide. With specialised R&D centers and its own mould shop, Bericap has intensively driven the development and industrialisation of tethered caps solutions. The development of the closures targeted to improve the beverage experience in multiple aspects: convenient pouring at home, comfortable drinking on-thego and finally consciously protecting the environment by the joint collection of bottle and cap. After the first successful customer market launches with the Bericap ClipAside the company has executed a consumer survey and has put his own closures to a daily-life test. The result was very positive in terms of closure handling, hygiene and especially from an ecological point of view. Bericap recognised and already solved one potential issue for the consumer specially for on-the go-dairy products: after shaking the package some foam stays in the cap. To avoid liquid dropping out of the closure when drinking from the bottle, Bericap developed the patent pending capillary ribs with a frosted head plate surface. This technology improves the retention of the fluid in the cap. (Fig.1) The ClipAside tethered caps solution is available for all relevant neck finishes. The opening angle is between 170-180 ° depending on the neck finish. It has a consistent performance on all relevant neck finishes from 26-38mm. Production on an industrial scale was carried out with a trial, in which 80 million caps were cut with one knife. In order to produce the ClipAside cap it is not necessary to change the neck area and little or Fig. 1: F.l.t.r. Standard closure vs capillary ribs with frosted surface A positive excitement could be felt by everyone in the last days before the Drinktec fair. The PET and beverage industry was shuffling its feet and could hardly wait to get back to exchanging ideas with customers and visitors. To make the wait easier, PETplanet initiated a preview series ahead of the fair. On two consecutive days, a total of six talks on PET-relevant technical highlights took place at the PETinar online conferences. As an industry expert and Editor-at-Large at PETplanet, Ruari McCallion led us with his charm through two highly interesting days.
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