Weight saving drives barrier PET in Europe

Speaking at the European Plastics News Barrier PET Bottles conference in Brussels, Belgium, in May, Schönwald said the enhanced barrier bottle market remains a very interesting niche with growth running above PET packaging rates.

“For barrier PET we expect to see an average annual growth rate of around 10%,” he told delegates, citing increasing interest in sustainability and reductions in packaging-related CO2 emissions as key drivers.

“Sustainability has gained considerable influence in the PET business and light-weighting is now a very interesting solution,” he said.

Schönwald was presenting findings of a study of the barrier packaging market across western, central and eastern Europe taking in data from 33 countries, including the 27 EU nations, Russia and the Ukraine.

He said the brewing industry was the major consumer of enhanced barrier PET bottles in 2009 across these 33 countries, accounting for a total of 2.32bn units. Juice and juice drinks accounted for 1.34bn units and water and soft drinks 280m units.

While acknowledging that the western European brewing industry has been slower to adopt PET than expected a decade ago, Schönwald says this is no longer a pricing issue. His analysis of costing for a 500ml beer pack – which takes into account container, closure, label, filling, transport and shelf space cost – shows barrier PET to be slightly less expensive than steel or aluminium cans and more than 20% less than glass bottles.

Schonwald estimates more than half of the enhanced barrier PET bottles consumed in Europe last year were produced using PET blends. Multilayer technologies accounted for 29% o the market in unit terms and coating technologies – internal and external – a little less than 20%.

Coating technologies have made considerable headway in the beer sector. Franck Hancard, packaging product manager at French PET blow moulding machinery maker Sidel, said one billion 500ml beer bottles were produced using its Actis internal coating technology last year.

While that is a tiny proportion of the global packaged beer market, which accounted for 320bn units in 2009 - 65% of which is in glass - Sidel predicts further PET growth ahead. “The key driver for PET in beer is lightweighting the bottle,” said Hancard. “It is the biggest advantage we have over glass.”

Sidel estimates consumption of PET in beer applications worldwide will grow by 11% a year to 2012, rising to 15% a year over the period from 2012 to 2016.

Schönwald predicts that coatings and blends will play major roles in the barrier PET market going forward, but he sees growth in multi-layer designs slowing relative to these alternative technologies. “Multi-layer is a very good technology and it is very flexible, but it will lose market share,” he said.

How wide the differential in growth turns out to be depends in part on the pricing strategies of multi-layer preform producers. With considerable installed capacity across Europe today, Schönwald sees scope for multi-layer suppliers to reduce prices.

Emerging markets such as wine packaging, which is more suited to multi-layer solutions, could also present converters with considerable opportunities in the coming years, he said.

Artenius PET Packaging Europe is one of the leading players in development of enhanced barrier PET for the wine industry. The company’s business development manager for the wine sector, Sylvain Houard, said the company expects to sell 8m bottles into this sector in 2010.

Weight saving – together with the reductions in CO2 attributed to PET bottle production, recycling and transportation – over glass is the key attraction of PET wine bottles. Houard said that a 75cl multi-layer PET bottle is up to eight times lighter than a traditional glass alternative. The weight saving is even greater on smaller single-serve designs.

“At the entrance to the filling line, PET bottles have emitted 50% less CO2 than a similar size glass bottle,” he said.

Houard said testing has shown that its multi-layer Bind-Ox oxygen scavenger technology in a three-layer form will protect wine from oxidation for more than two years. The pigments used in the PET bottles also provide better UV and visible light protection that standard green “Bordeaux” glass bottles.

Barrier PET Bottle 2010 took place in Brussels, Belgium on 5-6 May. For more information about the conference or presentations email: epnconferences@crain.com

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