Plastics News - Show Daily - October 22, 2022 - 11

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Plastics News, October 22, 2022 * 11
Sipa sees PET challenging glass in wine market
By Joseph Pryweller
Plastics News Staff
In Italy, where wine is king,
glass' reign as a material of packaging
choice since the dawn of
alcoholic drinks could be threatened
by PET.
With many technical hurdles
overcome, PET is starting to become
the new norm for wine packaging
in Europe and elsewhere,
according to Venice, Italy-based
blow molding specialist Sipa SpA.
At its K 2022 booth, the company
showed off a large bottle of spumante,
with the sparkling wine
packaged in a warmer, curved
PET container then the harder,
colder glass bottle typically seen.
" It's transparent and there's no
breakage, " said Sipa Area Sales
Manager Yasar Yildiz of the bottle
he held, called La Spumante. " PET
has designs on glass and is making
progress. Now we're looking
at other applications where we
can expand into PET, and the next
steps in the process. "
The company was at K 2022
touting its newest innovation, a
four-station injection stretch blow
molding machine with a rotational
servo motor that can cut energy
consumption as much as 500 kilograms
by weight. The lower energy
consumption on new blow molding
equipment has also meant a dramatic
reduction in costs than for
glass in an age where energy prices
are high and supply levels are perilously
low, especially in Europe.
Sipa is highly invested in PET,
managing all aspects of the bottle-making
processes from injection
molded preforms to blow
molded bottles to mold making,
of which the company is one of
the largest global producers.
Among its developments at K
2022 was a mold changing station
that dropped the time to change a
mold to 2.5 hours, Yildiz said.
The lower usage of energy in
PET vs. glass has brought inroads
in the use of PET for many applications,
added Marco Brusadin, Sipa
packaging development manager.
Glass in particular has a diffi cult
time: A great deal more energy is
expended to produce a glass bottle
than does a blow molded PET
alternative. Transport of lighter-weight
PET bottles also is much
less costly in fuel usage than that
of glass bottles, he added.
With energy prices high and
supply low, there is also an economic
incentive to consider PET,
Brusadin said.
" These days, it's all about carbon
footprint, " Brusadin said.
" Glass is much heavier and its
LCA [life cycle assessment] is
much higher than plastics. Customers
want to keep costs as low
as possible. "
All of which are making European
wine producers and retailers
take note of PET as a potential
alternative to glass.
PET wine bottle
are
SIPA SPA
growing in popularity
in Italy and are also
making inroads in
Germany and France,
among other locations,
Brusadin said. The biggest
surprise was that the fi rst
request that Sipa received for the
development of a PET wine bottle
came from Sweden, he said.
The trend line of PET replacement
started in Europe with packaged
jars, especially for jams and
tomato sauce, he added. It is making
incursions into the market for
vinegar and olive oil, areas that the
U.S. market is also seeing. And perHall
13,
Booth B11
fume
fragrances
also
are migrating to PET,
even though glass may
convey more elegance
and sophistication.
Iconic brand Louis
convey more elegance
Vuitton has launched
perfume in plastic bottles,
Brusadin said. A key draw
is the advent of e-commerce and
the sending of perfume by those
means. " It's not the eco-friendly
system that is drawing cosmetics
but e-commerce, " he said. " It
is the weight of the box and the
possibility of broken glass that is
a problem in transport. "
To that end, Sipa is developing
injection stretch blow molding machines
with higher clamping force
that can make bottles with sharp
corners necessitated by many cosmetics
producers, Yildiz said. Newer
machines are producing bottles
as small at 7.5 grams, he said.
The company is developing
new solutions that also meet
customer demands for recycling
content in PET bottles. Among
those is a 2019 agreement with
recycling company Erema that
involves increasing the use of
recycled fl ake to melt and inject
into a preform for food contact
applications. The system, called
Xtreme Renew, has been expanded
to new applications for bottle-to-bottle
recycling needs.
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19th
- 26th
October 2022
Düsseldorf, Germany
Hall 16, Booth B47-2
Sipa Area Sales Manager Yasar
Yildiz and the PET wine bottle
called La Spumante: " PET has
designs on glass and is making
progress, " he said.
Plastics News photo by Joseph Pryweller
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