BOTTLE MAKING 28 PETplanet Insider Vol. 25 No. 04/24 www.petpla.net A distinctively eye-catching design and an unusual container type – Wine in PET bottles off ers a sustainable alternative to the traditional glass bottle A classic reinterpreted based on article by Peter Mörtl, Press Relations at Krones AG A wine bottle that is not only sustainable but also ideally suited for shipping: Cornelia Braun addressed that challenge in her bachelor’s thesis, which she wrote at Krones. She discovered great potential in PET – a material out of which she provided a modern Bordeaux bottle design to accompany her thesis. Wine has been sold in glass bottles since the 17th century. While the first of them were black, more colours like green and brown have been added over time. And several different bottle shapes have also been created. The various designs in common use today frequently denote the region where a wine is grown or the type of wine the bottle contains. Typical examples include the Franconian Bocksbeutel, the Burgundy and hock bottles as well as the best-known and most used bottle shape: the Bordeaux bottle. While working on her bachelor’s thesis at Krones, Cornelia Braun, a student at Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences, examined the question of how the transport of wine bottles can be made more sustainable and more efficient. Her answer is: Use PET. Mario Casper, who has specialised in PET container design at Krones and mentored Cornelia Braun while she wrote her thesis, describes the current market situation as follows: “While this idea is in Germany still viewed with a certain degree of scepticism, it has become common practice in other countries such as France, Spain and Italy where supermarkets are already offering wine in PET bottles.” Weight reduction of up to 90% “PET offers several advantages over traditional glass bottles. One of them is the fact that less energy is needed to produce PET bottles, and another one their lower weight. A 0.75-litre glass bottle usually weighs at least 500 grams. So the use of PET can reduce the weight of primary packaging by up to 90 per cent. “And such savings also have a considerable effect on a company’s carbon footprint,” explains Cornelia Braun. “What’s more, it is possible to send a significantly larger number of PET preforms than empty glass bottles to the bottler in one delivery, which means fewer shipments are needed.” Use of PET makes for a reduction in packaging weight of up to 90% And PET is also a material ideally suited for recycling. “That was why development work was focused not only on the bottle as such but also on the capsule and the label. If one and the same material were to be used for all bottle components, that would simplify the recycling process even more,” says Mario Casper. But PET offers advantages not only in regard to sustainability and closing the plastics loop. For safety reasons, glass containers are not permitted during air travel and at many events. So unbreakability is yet another one of its positive aspects. Traditional bottle design - enhanced The design of the Bordeaux bottle made of PET provides for three different sizes, for a content of 750, 500 For the period from 2022 to 2027, the data analytics and consulting company GlobalData forecasts growth rates of around 6.7 per cent for wine in PET bottles.
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