New lighter plastic bottle pours into wine market

A single-serve plastic wine bottle is being developed to meet Italy's new hospitality regulations. Italy-headquartered PET Engineering is tailoring a technology it recently developed for single-serve water applications for wine. The new lighter wine bottles are likely to be commercialised during 2006 as the technology still requires another year of research and development.

The process, which PET Engineering developed in conjunction with Husky and Corvaglia, uses about a third less material than today’s PET preforms. The cost-saving benefits of using less PET could help make small plastic wine bottles more attractive to wine suppliers. The Italian government introduced new legislation at the beginning of July 2005, prohibiting the hospitality industry from offering single servings of beverages poured from larger pre-opened containers.

While Italy is the first European country to introduce the legislation, others could follow suit. PET Engineering president Moreno Barel says developing the technology for wine is more challenging than water applications. ‘Wine poses more challenges as it is sensitive to oxidisation and requires good barrier properties,’ says Barel. Barel points out that Italian consumers may not take to plastic wine bottles initially. The advantages of plastic bottles are that they are lighter than glass and will not shatter or break. The plastic preform has potential in the airline industry, supermarkets and outdoor events.

PET Engineering is dedicated to reducing the cost of PET bottles and claims to have several other projects in the pipeline focused on achieving this. The company declines to reveal information about these at this early stage.