Transparent jars: Danone and Amcor create 100 percent recyclable container for all-natural yogurt

17 Jan 2019 --- Danone has collaborated with Amcor to produce a transparent, wide-mouth, spoonable jar for its all-natural yogurt, sold in Argentina. Appealing to the growing “mindful consumer” market in Latin America, the 200ml jar is made from transparent PET, meaning it is 100 percent recyclable, while consumers can easily see the all-nature yogurt through the jar.

“This wide-mouth PET jar is an entirely new format offering for cold-fill dairy products,” says Martin Darmandrail, New Business Development Director for Amcor in Argentina. “In a market historically dominated by thermoformed PP and polystyrene containers, we’ve shaken things up with a yogurt package with the durability, freshness, performance, manufacturing and sustainability benefits of PET.”

“PET is 100 percent recyclable. Other components in the jar are aluminum (for the foil seal) and polyethylene (PE) for the overcap, which are also recyclable materials. The jar design and process are compatible with adding PCR material in the future,” Mariano Herrera, Innovation & Product Development Director-Amcor LATAM, tells PackagingInsights.

The new PET jar supports the 100 percent natural positioning of Danone’s La Serenísima’s yogurt with featured engraving, a finely finished base and a body-wrap label. To protect the contents, the jar includes a 55mm finish with aluminum-PET-aluminum-foil barrier seal and an ultraviolet blocker.

This month, US-based light protection specialists Noluma International released new evidence highlighting the rapid degradation of nutrients in dairy as a result of light exposure. In some instances, nutritional degradation can be as high as 51 percent. Noluma highlights the pressing need for more effective light barrier protection.

“The preform [of the new yogurt jar] was designed to provide a thick wall in the container and incorporates an additive to block UV light. The preform design is also prepared to incorporate different barrier additives for future needs. The finished design is prepared to accept an aluminum foil to ensure seal integrity and product protection,” Herrera explains.

“Severe” technical challenges
The development of this new jar included several “severe” technical challenges, Herrera notes. “To start, this was a widemouth preform container (55mm finish) that has never been produced in a Matrix blow molding machine. Since the equipment did not exist, all the development and prototyping activities were done in a pilot center in Europe adapting a laboratory machine to simulate the industrial process.”

“At the same time, the Amcor team worked in very close collaboration to identify areas of risk and implement mitigation actions to ensure the production platform would be able to handle the new preform and container design smoothly from the start up.”

“Finally, the customer aseptic filling line was also new and was being modified during the development of the new container, so the validation process required testing the new container in the different parts of the line independently prior to the full line being assembled,” Herrera adds.

Herrera also tells PackagingInsights that the product required very strict quality controls. Amcor implemented on-line automated vision inspections systems to check 100 percent of the containers and ensure quality standards. Amcor provided labeling for the product and, in order to prevent contamination, all containers were bagged and sealed prior to palletization, warehousing and shipment.

With consumers increasingly eager to inspect products before they buy, the transparent packaging allows people to see the fresh yogurt.

“We have developed La Serenísima Original, a product inspired by the first yogurt made by La Serenísima 55 years ago, which revolutionized the category in 1963,” says Maximiliano Sassone, R&I Director for Danone Argentina. “We carefully select the ingredients, including milk from Argentine family farms, and pay respect to every step of the original process, creating a 100 percent natural product without preservatives, so that our consumers can connect to their memories of the original product.”

In Argentina, Danone has launched La Serenísima Original-brand yogurt in six flavors (natural, naturally sweetened, strawberry, blackberry, lemon and ginger, and sweet squash) and will extend commercialization of the product to the rest of Latin America.

Danone has installed a Stork filling line and plans production rates of 40 to 50 million units per year. The yogurt market in Latin America continues to grow as companies develop products to appeal to health-conscious consumers. That appeal includes premium-looking packaging that is durable and increasingly sustainable.

By Joshua Poole