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Britvic banks on being different

This UK beverage marketer was a pioneer in aseptically filled PET bottles. Other ambitious packages include matte-black coated glass for on-premise sales and black PET bottles in four sizes.

All four flavors of 13.5-oz Still Tango are aseptically filled in black PET bottles bearing striking graphics
All four flavors of 13.5-oz Still Tango are aseptically filled in black PET bottles bearing striking graphics

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola has bagged more than its share of publicity lately for the way it uses proprietary container shapes as powerful marketing tools.

Also busy whipping up some wild shapes of its own for its Tango brand beverages is Britvic Soft Drinks, Ltd., of Chelmsford, Essex, England.

"Keep in mind, we compete against the biggest trademark on the planet in Coca-Cola," says senior brand manager Jeremy Crisp. "So our on-shelf look is a big key for us."

Among Britvic's custom-molded bottles is a 400-mL (13.5-oz) bottle of polyethylene terephthalate for Still Tango, a noncarbonated fruit-based drink that sells for about 55p (88¢) at supermarkets as well as convenience store outlets. Injection stretch/blow-molded by Schmalbach-Lubeca (Manchester, MI), the bottle weighs 25 g and has a 38-mm neck finish designed to make gulping easy. It takes a threaded closure, with a breakaway TE feature, custom-molded of polypropylene by Bericap (Paris, France). It has a roll-fed wraparound PP label applied by a Contiroll labeler from Krones (Franklin, WI).

Appearance aside, the bottle is significant because it's filled aseptically. Like other firms whose beverages are aseptically filled in PET, marketers at Britvic like the consumer appeal that PET has. They could, of course, have gone the hot-fill route with a heat-set PET. But they appreciate the improved taste and nutrition content that high-temperature/quick cool-down aseptic processing provides. They're also able to specify a bottle considerably lighter than a comparable heat-set bottle would be.

The Still Tango bottles are filled at Britvic's Chelmsford, England, plant. Installed there in late 1994 was a monoblock rinser/filler/capper in a special clean room with overpressurized air to keep out bacteria. First is flash pasteurization of the juice at 91°C (195°F) for 30 seconds. This is done in a plate pasteurizer supplied by La Girondine (Le Bouscat, France).

Inside the Class 100 filling room is a 72-head rinser and 54-valve filler, also from La Girondine, and a 16-head capper from Zalkin, represented in the U.S. by Fowler Products (Athens, GA). According to La Girondine, this trio of rotary machines is capable of filling Britvic's bottles at 600/min, and the product emerging from the line has a shelf life of six months at ambient temperature.

Just before entering the rinser, bottles are sterilized inside and out with what La Girondine calls "ozonized water." An on-site ozone generator is used to send liquid ozone into the water that is used to spray the bottles. After this sterilizing spray, bottles are water-rinsed inside and out and then dried with sterile air. This accelerates the evaporation of the ozone, which is unstable in the first place and evaporates readily. According to La Girondine, 100% of the ozone is eliminated before filling begins.

Relaunch

Until May, the only Still Tango flavor produced was orange, so the sophisticated Chelmsford aseptic filling line had capacity to spare. Also, bottles were supplied by a vendor who molded them via an integrated single-stage system.

Much of this changed last May when Still Tango was relaunched. Added to the product lineup were three more flavors: lemon, apple, and black currant. Advertising and promotional budgets were expanded, which had Britvic anticipating far greater demand for Still Tango. That's when Schmalbach-Lubeca was brought in. The firm invested more than £3 million ($4꼞ꯠ U.S.) in new tooling by Husky (Bolton, Ontario, Canada) for preform manufacturing and a new Krupp Corpoplast (Hamburg, Germany) 17/7 blow-molding machine.

"When Still Tango reached a sufficiently high volume, it made the two-stage process by far the most efficient method of production," says Schmalbach-Lubeca's David Warburton.

This summer, Britvic ran its aseptic bottling line one or two 12-hr shifts, five days/week. As summer wound down, production tapered to single-shift days, though when demand rises, the capacity will be there to meet it.

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