Amcor Designs Vendable PET Heat Set Bottle for Campbell Soup Company

Campbell’s V-8 brand enters vending channel with new custom bottle from Amcor PET Packaging.

30/09/08 Campbell Soup Co., Camden, NJ is using a custom hot-fill polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle from Amcor PET Packaging to redesign its V8 and V8 V-Fusion 12-ounce lines. The bottle has been redesigned so that the brands can be sold via vending machines, in addition to retail shelves. The opportunity to extend into vending has been made possible via a new business alliance with The Coca-Cola Company.

"We were looking at ways to move into distribution channels where we have little presence. Now that our bottle is vendable, our beverages can be available wherever vending machines exist—schools, malls, offices, retail outlets, hospitals, etc. Through our alliance with The Coca-Cola Company, we are able to provide more nutritious 100% juice options in the education channel, particularly high schools," explains Jina Sohn, associate brand manager, Campbell Soup Co.

The end result is an attractive bottle that offers better grip and portability while also enhancing the health equity of the V8 brand, according to Sohn. "Consumer tests showed that V8 and V8-Fusion users significantly preferred this new bottle over the current one."

The Campbell team worked very closely with Amcor and The Coca-Cola Company representatives to better understand how various types of vending machines function and what bottle attributes were needed to maximize performance.

"After working with The Coca-Cola Company to determine specific vending requirements for the packages, we partnered with Amcor to take advantage of their Imagine™ process. This allowed us to design and develop a container that not only looks and feels good, but also performs at the manufacturing level. There is a benefit of working on the design directly with the bottle manufacturer. Not only are they experts on physically manufacturing the containers, but they also understand the rigorous filling environment. This minimized the number of design iterations which allowed us to meet our project deadlines, Senior Packaging Engineer Jason Tiefenback says.

Six flavors made a "soft launch" debut last month. They include: V8 100% Vegetable Juice, V8 Spicy Hot, Campbell’s Tomato Juice, V8 V-Fusion Strawberry Banana, V8 V-Fusion Pomegranate Blueberry and V8 V-Fusion Peach Mango.

The bottle will be primarily sold as a single-serve in convenience, grocery and mass merchandisers, with a 4-pack slated for Wal-Mart and a 12-count case at Sam’s Club.