Will PET bottles become the next generation packaging trend in the beer industry?

Will PET bottles become the next generation packaging trend in the beer industry?

According to a report released by the British Independent Brewers Association (SIBA) this year, from the perspective of the beer industry as a whole, craft beer is still the fastest growing category.

While glass bottles have historically been the container of choice for beer, craft beer packaging is constantly being innovated and improved for ease of sale and consumption. According to a report by EeBriaTrade, the mainstream of packaging in the craft beer industry has shifted to canned beer. In 2016, 16% of craft beer packaging was in cans, and this proportion has risen to 72% in the past year. However, some companies value the design advantages of PET packaging and develop PET beer packaging.

Australian packaging company Amcor developed a new PET bottle design for Brazilian craft beer brand Salzburg. The New Age Bebidas winery from Brazil has specially customized 600ml 100% recyclable PET packaging bottles for its Salzburg pasteurized beer.

The PET bottle is characterized by its color like glass and shape like a champagne bottle, and retains the crown-shaped metal bottle cap of the glass package, but the bottle body is lighter and more portable, and more shock-resistant and drop-resistant.

In the past, beer glass bottles were pasteurized after filling and capping. The gradual heating at the front end of the sterilizer and the gradual cooling at the rear end required extra care to prevent glass containers from breaking due to sudden changes in thermal stress. The newly designed PET bottle replaces glass container filling and capping, and can withstand the internal pressure and high temperature conditions of the tunnel pasteurization process.

When it comes to product protection, glass has strong gas barrier properties, which can effectively prevent the reaction between beer and air. In order to ensure the quality of beer, Amcor has added an oxygen scavenger to prevent oxygen from entering and exiting through the PET material, so that the shelf life of craft beer products can reach up to 4 months. Amcor mentioned that compared with glass, PET bottles have design advantages. In addition to providing protection for products, they are also lighter, more portable, safer, and less fragile, which helps to reduce transportation costs and reduce traffic along the supply chain. Energy and carbon emissions. The PET bottle is 100% recyclable packaging and can go into existing recycling systems.

“Innovation and differentiation are at the heart of the Brazilian craft beer market,” explained Fabio Violin, President of New Age Bebidas Beer. "The flexibility of PET packaging has allowed us to develop a unique glass alternative that will have broad appeal throughout Latin America."

Felipe Salles, Director of Business Development at Amcor Brazil, said, “As the craft beer market grows, we are working with more brewers to design PET bottle packaging that achieves an attractive design while meeting product shelf life requirements. and cost savings.”

Heineken is also optimistic about PET beer packaging. In May this year, Heineken Russia branch launched two new PET beer bottle designs, the new design uses the interchangeable insert system of the Italian PET Engineering company. According to PET Engineering, the shape of the new design can be easily modified using interchangeable inserts – meaning the new design can always be replaced with new decorations, moved and resized labels, and even changed bottle volumes.

Canned beer has gained the upper hand in the ready-to-drink beer market in recent years, mainly due to the convenience of single-pack sales and the environmental benefit of aluminum cans being easier to recycle than glass bottles. Even so, the recovery rate and recycling rate of PET beverage packaging have also been improving. With the continuous promotion of garbage classification, the improvement of PET recycling efficiency and material innovation may make more beer manufacturers pay attention to PET beer bottles.

NAVAN latest Craft Beer Bottling Line specialized for PET bottles, adopts advanced proportional membrane valve with continuous liquid level floating technique, help to prevent the foaming generation, allows the liquid filling level more accurate to +-2mm, final liquid losses can be reduced by 2.5%; Electronically controlled long-tube carbon dioxide replacement system ensures extremely low oxygen increase during the filling process, the average oxygen increase can be reduced to 30ppb which maximizing the product’s shelf life to average 118.2 days in record; The PLC controlled air cylinder filling valve modified from KHS technology; Shutdown CIP cleaning system controlled by PLC as well, improve the cleaning efficiency.

If you are interested in setting up a PET bottled beer bottling plant, you are welcomed to contact us via www.navanpack.com or www.navan-machine.com or contact us directly via mobile/whatsapp 86-13776262858(Mr Ryan Hwang) or send us an email to info@navan-machine.com