“Setting a world record in reduced bottle weight”: Sidel StarLite Ultralight for carbonated soft drinks

27 Aug 2018 --- The Sidel StarLite family of bottle base solutions is expanding with the StarLite UltraLight for Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) which offers an even lighter bottle than existing options on the market. The new UltraLight CSD base design significantly decreases the amount of raw material needed to produce PET bottles. Thereby, the bottle offers hard discount chains the opportunity to release more affordable carbonated beverages in PET bottles, while strengthening their competitiveness and productivity without hampering the product quality consumers have become to expect, Sidel explains.

“The R&D challenge Sidel faced was to develop a bottle for carbonated beverages which addresses the market requirements in terms of performance: thermal stability for good behaviour in specific storage conditions, stress cracking for the base to resist under pressure and to have a bottle that offers a great consumer experience with good bottle handling, while also allowing bottle design freedom for the customer,” Laurent Naveau, Packaging expert at Sidel tells PackagingInsights.

Hard discount supply chains want to offer competitive CSD ranges compared to the main, international CSD brands, Naveau explains. To do so, these manufacturers want to make savings on the packaging itself by reducing the weight of the bottle.

“The optimum bottle base design results in a staggering 25 percent lighter bottle weight compared to a traditional CSD bottle at around 13.5g, contributing as a whole to reduced production costs while maintaining carbonated beverage quality. Whereas a traditional 0.5L CSD bottle weighs 13.5g, the very light weighted StarLite UltraLight CSD only weighs 10.5g. When it comes to the 1.5L bottle, it now weighs 24g rather than a traditional bottle, which is normally at 28g,” says Naveau.

By optimizing the amount of PET required to manufacture the bottle, the new Sidel StarLite UltraLight CSD base offers a substantial reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

For example, for a 0.5L bottle, the total yearly production PET savings for the new base combined with the new neck would be at US$1.4 million (€1.1 million). Looking at the 1.5L bottle, the yearly production PET savings would amount to a total of US$1.8 million (€1.5 million).

“Sidel always works on the ‘rightweight’ approach to lightweight bottle design; the objective is not to simply go further in terms of lightweighting alone. The ‘rightweight’ approach ensures bottles are lighter, yet they also stay attractive, protect the beverage inside and lead to high consumer satisfaction. This requires specific evaluations and packaging assessments to ensure a good bottle performance,” Naveau tells PackagingInsights.

Sidel’s StarLite UltraLight solution also comes with an innovative CSD bottleneck design, the latter 26/22 neck finish featuring a weight of as little as 2.3g, a thread diameter of 26mm, an inner diameter of 21.7mm, and a height of 13mm. The bottleneck can be combined with the new Novembal cap, the Novasoda 26/22 for carbonated beverages.

Lightweighting and source reduction has always been a focused area of the packaging industry because it has easily-defined benefits through the minimization of material, production and transport costs.

Sidel had previously prioritized light weighting with the development of the Sidel StarLite Nitro version – particularly suitable for still beverages producers. This range similarly reduced costs and increased sustainability and required a reduction in energy needed in production. You can read more about lightweighting and source reduction in the packaging industry here.

By Laxmi Haigh

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