Coca-Cola’s Redesign of Small PET Bottles Pushes Lightweighting Below Prior ‘Floor’
Coca-Cola has redesigned its small PET bottles for sparkling Minute Maid Refreshments and Minute Maid Aguas Frescas soft drinks, and will extend to Coca-Cola brand carbonated drinks in 20-oz, 100% rPET bottles. The new bottle design reduces the weight of all three bottle sizes by 2.5 g from 21 g to 18.5 g, an 11.9% reduction. This initiative is expected to reduce the company's use of new PET by over 30 million lbs in 2025, equivalent to around 800 million bottles. Coca-Cola's senior director of Global Packaging Development and Innovation, Alejandro Santamaria, said the company had reached the "floor" of lightweighting by using older preforms that were not conducive to more lightweighting. The new design incorporates learnings from past lightweighting initiatives, including maximizing stretching during the blow molding process and minimizing weak points.