Amcor produces PET bottles for pasteurized beer in Brazil-first as craft brand ditches glass

05 Aug 2019 --- Amcor has created the first PET bottles for pasteurized beer in Brazil for New Age’s Salzburg craft beer brand. The global supplier designed custom 600-milliliter containers for São Paulo–based beverage maker New Age Bebidas that combine a glass-like look and champagne-style base with the convenience of lightweight and shatter-resistant PET. The PET design also features a crown metal cap that replicates the standard glass bottle.

The PET containers are designed as a replacement for glass during the filling and capping process and withstand the internal pressure and high-heat conditions of the tunnel pasteurization process.

Amcor uses an oxygen scavenger barrier additive to prevent oxygen ingress and egress, providing up to four months of shelf-life. The bottle is compatible with existing recycling streams and is 100 percent recyclable. The lightweight containers also significantly reduce transportation costs, energy and CO2 emission reductions along the supply chain, the supplier notes.

 “As the craft beer market grows, we are partnering with brewers to achieve attractive designs and cost savings with PET bottles, while also meeting shelf-life requirements,” comments Felipe Salles, Business Development Director for Amcor in Brazil.

“PET bottles offer design advantages over glass as they are lighter weight, more easily and safely portable and unbreakable, while providing the required barrier protection,” adds Rodolfo Salles, Research and Development Manager for Amcor in Brazil.

New Age introduced the new beer packaging format at the Amcor stand during the Fispal Tecnologia show in June in São Paulo and has undertaken a pre-market trial in select cities in the state of São Paulo.

“Innovation and differentiation are the names of the game in the craft beer market in Brazil,” says Fabio Violin, President of New Age Bebidas. “The flexibility of PET packaging allows us to develop a unique replacement for glass that will deliver broad consumer appeal throughout Latin America.”

Amcor-Bemis combination promised innovation in Latin America
In June, Amcor completed the US$6.8 billion acquisition of Bemis in what Amcor CEO Ron Delia and Bemis CEO Bill Austen described as an “offensive” strategy to combine and expand the global footprint of the merging companies, particularly in the flexible and rigid plastics packaging markets within the Americas.

“We already have a global footprint, but we’ve been short on presence and participation in the Americas,” Melinda de Boer, Director External Communications, told PackagingInsights. “This deal helps bolster that part of the portfolio.”

Bemis has a strong position in the Americas’ plastic packaging business with a US$4 billion annual turnover. Amcor is expecting to increase its flexible packaging revenues in this region from approximately US$1 billion to approximately US$4 billion as a result of this deal.

“This merger is a great complementary fit in Latin America. Amcor has leading flexible packaging positions in the Andean region, Peru, Columbia and Chile. We've got a business in Argentina. Amcor hasn’t had an existing presence in Mexico and Brazil which is what Bemis brings with their leading positions in those regions. And so the combination of the two gives us a comprehensive footprint across Latin America in plastics packaging,” explains Delia. 

In addition to Amcor’s introduction of the first PET bottles for pasteurized beer in Brazil, the supplier has also developed clear PET bottles that have no strips and resemble glass in appearance for Brazilian dairy brand, Letti. Designed in response to the growing demand for transparent dairy packaging in Latin America, the bottles also use a screw cap, rather than the traditional foil seal barrier found on HDPE bottles.

In Latin America, Amcor is working with other leading dairy companies to convert a range of products into clear PET packaging. The development of PET dairy bottles plays into Amcor’s overall sustainability goals of ensuring all packaging is recyclable or reusable by 2025. It is also committed to increasing the use of recycled materials in its packaging.

By Joshua Poole

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