Winery opts for PET to advance sustainability

SUTTER Home Winery, the number one producer of single-serve wines in the United States, has switched over to plastic wine bottles in line withon going efforts to become more environmentally friendly. The 187ml wine bottles preserve the look of the original glass container and run on the winery抯 existing filling lines. "At Sutter Home, we are committed to environmentally responsible practices in every aspect of our winemaking operations, including packaging," said Wendy Nyberg, senior director of marketing. "Switching to PET has increased convenience for consumers and allowed us to offer a package with some great environmental benefits." The PET bottles from Ball Corporation weigh only one sixth what the glass bottles weigh and but are unbreakable, less wasteful and recyclable. "Producing the PET bottles generates 60% fewer greenhouse gasses than producing the glass bottles, plus the smaller PET bottles allow us to use less fuel and gain supply chain efficiencies because we get more bottles on a pallet and on a truck," said Nyberg. Proven recyclability Sutter Home began using Ball抯 custom-designed PET wine bottles in select markets in 2005 and has gradually increased distribution since then. The bottles feature Plasmax, a transparent, internal silicon oxide (SiOx) barrier coating technology that protects the wine inside the bottle. This ultra thin (less than 100 nm) material provides an FDA-compliant, enhanced passive barrier for oxygen-sensitive products that is transparent and resists cracking, abrasion and delamination. "We know that the Plasmax barrier coating Ball provides will keep our wine fresh and that the bottles can still be easily and effectively recycled," Nyberg said. Because the Plasmax barrier coating is maintained regardless of the length of time and the prevailing conditions, empty barriercoated bottles can be stored prior to filling for an almost unlimited period. An additional important aspect is their high degree of environmental friendliness. Bottles can be completely recycled bottle-to-bottle and are thus clearly sustainable from the point of view of conserving resources. A recycling study conducted according to the European PETCORE protocols demonstrated that Plasmax is removable during the recycling process and does not negatively affect any of the test requirements. These results were shared with the Association of Post-Consumer Plastics Recyclers (APR), the trade industry representing over 90% of the post-consumer plastic processing capacity in North America, which raised no objections to the results. Ball is the only PET bottle manufacturer to offer Plasmax barrier coating technology in North America, and has worked with the technology in its commercial manufacturing operations for more than four years. It operates two InnoPET Plasmax 12D machines from KHS Plasmax GmbH in its Chino, California, and its Ames, Iowa manufacturing facilities. To meet growing demand, both machines can be quickly and flexibly adapted to cope with different types of PET bottles as necessary. Protecting sensitive beverages The InnoPET Plasmax machine is designed to coat the insides of PET bottles with a barrier comprised of an ultra thin, completely transparent layer of glass. When it comes to protecting the product, the SiOx barrier coating lends PET packaging characteristics exhibited to date only in glass bottles. The inert, tasteless coating prevents oxygen from penetrating the barriercoated PET bottles and carbon dioxide from escaping from them. This enables the filled product to have the long shelf life customers demand without compromising quality. The process from KHS also enablAlle Artikel