Coca-Cola wins Brazilian packaging award for Tetra Pak cartons with bio-based plastic

Coca-Cola’s Del Valle Reserva brand of juice won the Technology in Beverage Packaging prize at the 2014 ABRE Awards in Brazil, for being the first brand to use Tetra Pak cartons with bio-based low-density polyethylene (LDPE) films derived from sugar cane.

The award-winning Del Valle juice in Tetra Prisma Aseptic 1000 reaches more than 200 million Brazilian consumers every year.

Following the successful pilot with Coca-Cola’s Del Valle brand, Tetra Pak has introduced cartons with bio-based LDPE to all 150 customers that source from Tetra Pak Brazil, a total of more than 13 billion packs every year. Combined with paperboard, the use of bio-based LDPE increases the content of renewable materials to 78% in the Tetra Prisma Aseptic package used by Coca-Cola.

“We are delighted that Coca-Cola has won this award,” said Charles Brand, Vice President Marketing & Product Management at Tetra Pak. “We will continue to work with both customers and suppliers to find innovative ways to increase the renewable content of our packaging - which currently averages 70% across our portfolio - because we strongly believe this is the best way to protect the sustainable future of the packaging industry.”

Produced by Braskem, bio-based LDPE used in Tetra Pak cartons has the same physical and chemical properties as the traditional fossil-fuel-derived polyethylene.

The ABRE Awards are designed to recognise quality, technology, design, functionality and innovation within Brazil’s packaging industry.