CCEP transitions to tethered caps and lighter bottles

In line with Europe’s upcoming single-use plastic law, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) has made the decision to introduce tethered caps for its PET bottles before July 2024. With the help of Sidel, CCEP has also identified the opportunity to move to a more sustainable, lighter neck for its carbonated soft drinks (CSD) plastic bottles.

Sidel and CCEP have collaborated for over 30 years at a global group level, across multiple projects in equipment, packaging development and supporting services. CCEP’s introduction of attached caps and the implementation of a lighter neck, saving 1 g, provided some technical challenges relating to the correct selection of preforms and caps as well as the right technical equipment configurations to switch across all its existing PET packaging lines in Europe.

During the initial definition and planning phases of the project, CCEP had to rationalise the solutions to implement in terms of caps, preforms and OEM technical modifications on the equipment. Pilot tests were handled on two different lines during the planning phase, including one Sidel line in Barcelona, converted to accommodate both tethered capping and the lighter neck GME30.40 that was developed and made available for industry. Sidel worked closely with CCEP to assess the specifications, along with the equipment configuration to ensure efficiency on the line, validate quality requirements of new necks and allow CCEP to conduct a small-scale market evaluation to understand consumer acceptance.

According to Geert Marse, Technical Packaging Lead at CCEP, project management between CCEP and Sidel was key to getting the lines ready. The Barcelona pilot helped the companies learn and identify any potential issues, before the first sellable bottles were released on the Great Britain market in May 2022.

In some cases, Sidel combined line conversion with line overhaul, while CCEP conducted maintenance to deliver product execution and highest level of line performance.

“The majority of converted lines achieved line efficiency objective. We are fully satisfied with the preparation, including line status assessment, the pilot line tests and the great collaboration in working together to make this project successful,” Marse said.

Once the Barcelona testing was finalised, CCEP asked Sidel to convert all of its lines within European factories. This varied between factories, with some requiring significant development, including adaptation of different equipment such as the preform feeder, blower, capper, cap feeder and labeller.

A large number of lines across the EU required conversion. The first line to be concerted was completed in April 2022 in East Kilbride, Scotland, which produced CCEP’s 1.5 L bottle, before a second single-serve line was completed at the end of 2022.

“To support this switch, Coca-Cola launched a broad communication campaign to explain how to use this new cap and to help gradually change consumer habits, collecting all consumers’ feedback and taking corrective actions if needed,” Marse said.

Sidel has converted one-third of CCEP’s European PET bottling lines for CSDs, with the final line conversion scheduled to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2024.