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Tropicana's bold shift to PET

Project "Inspiration" takes Tropicana Pure Premium into four new PET bottles, including two handled containers made with a new EBM grade that’s approved for recycling.

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“Packaging is central to what we do, and right now we’re in a big, big packaging transformation.”


That’s how vice president of marketing Memo Maquivar of PepsiCo’s Tropicana Products Division describes Tropicana’s carefully coordinated and lovingly executed move to clear PET containers for all four sizes of its Tropicana Pure Premium (TPP) brand.


“It’s been a huge shift for the company,” Maquivar continues. “You can imagine how significantly our manufacturing footprint in Florida has had to change in moving to these new clear plastic containers.” In some cases the move was away from gabletop cartons, while in others it was white HDPE that was being replaced.


“Keep in mind,” says Ruth Spudic, packaging and promotions director, “that this was all done on top of running the base business. Product kept going out the door, as it had to. Transforming the business, the plants, the labels—not to mention keeping our suppliers up to speed and in synch with where we were going—it was extremely demanding. Only an amazing team effort could have pulled it off.”


Adds Maquivar: “It was like changing the tires while the car is still running. But we were careful to adapt each line in a way that maximized the capital investment involved.”


In all four sizes, the primary driver in the switch to PET was product clarity. The move was also seen as an opportunity to give all four TPP offerings a common look.


The shift to PET started in 2011, when a 59-oz ESL gabletop was replaced by an injection stretch blow molded (ISBM) PET container also holding 59 oz and filled on ESL equipment. The bottle weighs 60 g and has a closure with an induction seal membrane that is affixed to the bottle by an Enercon system. Next was the single-serve 12-oz container, which is aseptically filled on a GEA Procomac system because it’s sold through convenience-store channels and consequently needs a longer shelf life than ESL technology provides. The single-serve was already in an ISBM PET bottle, but that bottle was decorated with a full-body shrink sleeve label. The new single-serve PET, weighing in at 21.5 g, takes the same carafe shape as the 59-oz bottle, and the full-body shrink sleeve label has been replaced by front and back labels. Why the change in decoration? “It’s a matter of premiumizing the brand,” says Spudic. “Being able to see the juice is huge to the consumer. And the mini carafe shape is much more elegant.”


Handled EBM PET
Most recently, TPP’s 89-oz ESL offering went from opaque white high-density polyethylene to a clear, handled bottle that’s extrusion blow molded (EBM) of PET. It weighs 106 g. And finally, early next year, Tropicana will introduce the largest bottle in the TPP series: a clear, handled, EBM PET container holding 118 oz and also filled on ESL equipment. It will weigh 130 g.


All four of these new PET containers—12-, 59-, 89-, and 118-oz—share common design features that make them parts of a design whole. For example, the elegant carafe style for the 59-oz bottle that led the way is repeated in the 12-oz container. The closures on these two containers also echo each other, as does the fluting that runs vertically up and down the sidewalls.


This vertical fluting is also carried over into the 89- and 118-oz sizes. But the real news on these two large containers is in the resin used to make them and in their unique closure. Let’s start with the resin.


These two large, handled bottles are extrusion blow molded of Polyclear® EBM PET 5505, a relatively new EBM-grade PET resin from  Indorama Ventures PLC. Indorama says Polyclear is priced at parity with the other EBM-grade PET resins that have been used in the past. But Polyclear differs from such resins because they are glycol-modified to make them melt and flow the way they need to in an extrusion blow molding application. Polyclear is not glycol-modified. It’s a semi-crystalline PET, essentially the same as the PET used routinely throughout the beverage industry to make injection stretch blow molded bottles. Why is this significant? Because Polyclear won’t disrupt the well established PET recycling stream. When it’s turned into flake and heated at the 160 deg C temperature that is required in the PET recycling process, it behaves just like any other PET flake. Glycol-modified grades, on the other hand, tend to soften at 160 deg C and can gum up the recycle stream.
The Association of Post-Consumer Plastics Recyclers has recognized Polyclear EBM PET 5505 as meeting or exceeding the APR PET Critical Guidance Document protocol. That means that Tropicana is able to put the “PETE 1” resin code on the bottom of its two handled PET containers. Other clear, handled containers in the marketplace, including those made of glycol-modified PET, must use the “Other 7” code.


According to Neil Enciso of Tropicana Packaging R&D, the firm could have launched a handled PET bottle earlier, just as other beverage companies have. But management was committed to waiting until a resin was available that was more recycling friendly.


“So in addition to aesthetics and functionality, even the resin we use brings us an advantage because consumers care about recyclability,” says Maquivar. “Besides, with everything we do here we try to improve our sustainability status, and this is one more example of that.”

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