Premium PET : bottle design as a hallmark of quality

There are currently two major developments in the field of the PET bottles on our international markets. Along with the conservation of resources expected by end users in their critical demand for environmentally-friendly packaging solutions, it is the premium PET bottle that must achieve a balance between sustainability and quality. In addition to savings in weight, a unique design and special haptics in particular play an important role here.

Premium PET thus combines the practical properties of the PET bottle with the high-quality look and feel of a glass bottle. Achieving a premium look involves a holistic design of the bottle – from the closure to the label design.

The technical components must also be taken into exact consideration, as features such as the quality of the neck, bottle stability and improved barrier protection have a direct impact on the quality of the PET bottle. Many of these components must therefore be taken into account in the design of a new PET bottle so that as a marketing tool it triggers the decisive stimulus with the consumer at the point of sale.

We can find out which type of packaging ultimately makes it to the consumer in the supermarkets of the world by visiting markets regularly. What are the trends and which properties must an appealing package have? We are currently seeing a definite development towards unusual PET bottle designs in Asia, particularly in China and Japan, where the design is already an expression of a certain lifestyle – a social attitude. In contrast, on the German market the approach tends to be more conventional, with glass often the preferred type of packaging as opposed to PET. Certain design components, such as bottle colors, are also used here to create a fixed association between bottles and products. Milk or orange juice packaged in black canisters will thus most likely continue to have a rather difficult time on the domestic consumer market.

How strong is thus the influence of the product to be packaged on the packaging? This is frequently defined by the properties of the bottle right from the start, such as shapes reminiscent of grandmother’s juice bottle or bottle caps previously familiar from their use on glass bottles only. It is therefore increasingly a matter of individualizing the product and packaging. As always, the trends that are also reflected clearly in the product design in this case are “organic”, supplemented with “homemade” – in addition to the more recent terms “hand-crafted” and “traditional”. These are tailored very specifically to groups of buyers and their lifestyles, be it adolescents, health and environmentally-conscious consumers or the over 50s. This is where premium PET not only has its greatest development potential but also its most vocal critics.

But what about the environmental compatibility of PET containers? The recycling rate in Germany is exemplary worldwide. The ambitious goal of the beverage, food and non-food industries to increasingly produce PET containers from existing raw materials, such as recycled PET granulate or vegetable-based components, to minimize the use of fossil sources in the production of PET packaging also speaks for the efforts of the industry to offer their consumers a packaging solution with the greatest environmental compatibility. The important factors here are dialog and transparency to offer good and above all convincing arguments regarding the catchword “plastic waste”.

My work as a PET bottle designer and the experience I have gained in this capacity with regard to the development of environmentally-friendly packaging solutions help me in working together with the experts of Bottles & Shapes at KHS to introduce customers to bottle designs that can contribute towards saving materials and thereby meet the demands made of high-quality PET packaging. Short-neck bottles, for example, can decrease the weight of preforms; steep inside walls enable us to avoid high blowing pressures and thus save valuable energy.