Coca-Cola Europacific Partners is introducing lighter weight necks for carbonated soft drinks bottles

Technically challenging

Reducing the weight of the neck of a carbonated soft drink bottle is a complex technical challenge. The neck needs to perform well under adverse and extreme conditions and meet high safety and quality standards, while maintaining full convenience for the consumer.

Teamwork

This new solution was developed in collaboration with The Coca-Cola Company, working closely with several bottle and cap suppliers. Over six million bottles were tested under rigorous conditions. Despite the reduction in neck material, each bottle can still withstand the 11.5 bars of pressure - five times that of a car tyre - required to contain the carbonated beverage. Production lines in Germany were the first to convert in Q4 2021, and the other European markets will follow in the next two years.

Towards an industry standard

Coca-Cola is interested in making the new design an industry standard and hopes that this design will be accepted as a free-to-use, open-source industry standard published by the industry association Cetie (International Technical Centre for Bottling). It will then be available to any beverage company to use for their own bottles. This should succeed in achieving further packaging and carbon savings across the industry in the long term.

Geert Marsé, Associate Director Engineering, New Technology and Innovation at CCEP: "This new lighter-weight neck design – a seemingly simple, but highly technical and complex innovation – builds on our longstanding lightweighting programme and helps us further reduce the environmental impact of our packaging. This innovation supports our ongoing progress to zero waste and net zero GHG emissions." 

Source: www.cocacolaep.com