Progress in blow molding keeps plastic containers popular: advancements in container-making equipment are behind innovation and extreme output

Food & Drug Packaging, August, 2004 by Deirdre Sokol

The bottle is blow molded on standard equipment, conveyed and palletized through a standard downstream configuration, but enhanced using proprietary mold designs. The initial version is being used by Honest Tea and Malibu Beach Beverage Group, the maker of Malibu Beach drinks.

Like Graham, TricorBraun constantly looks for value-added benefits all along the production cycle. "For us and our customers, we've seen new capabilities of the resins, such as hot-fill PET and improvements in hot-fill vinyl," explains Suzanne Fenton, Tricor's director of marketing.

What also matters, says Jeff Neuman, vice president of sales and marketing at Wilmington Machinery Inc., is ease of use and convenience. For gallon type bottles, consumers prefer easy hold handles, which requires extrusion blow molding. For single-serve items, stretch PET blow molding is best. If you add a fancy shrink label, either extrusion or stretch works.

Pretty functional

Manufacturers' requirements have changed because of trends in the marketplace. Equipment has to be utilitarian--high speed, efficient and low maintenance, but also outfitted with sophisticated decorating capabilities. Hot stamping, silk screening and holograms are all market requirements, not just upgraded automation that reduces labor costs while ramping up quality control.

"Out-of-the-box" technology, however, isn't always a perfect fit. Graham's production lines, for example, are a mix of commercial and proprietary machinery. Graham Machinery Group, a spin-off that makes and sells blow molding machinery, has built some of Graham's custom equipment. These machines handle special product batches that require more, or specialized, functionality that is often times considered a trade secret and calls for proprietary protection.

As long as consumers continue to hanker for convenient and attractive packaging, plastic container manufacturers should expect to keep their plants working 24/7.

For more information

The following companies contributed to the research of this article:

Cebal Americas

203-845-6397; www.cebalamericas.com

CCL Plastic Packaging

310 635-4444; www.cclplastic.com

The Freedonia Group

440 684-4600; www.freedoniagroup.com

Grapham Packaging

717 849-5800; www.grahampackaging.com

TricorBraun

800 816-3633; www.tricorbraun.com

Wimington Machinery Inc.

910 452-5090; www.wilmingtonmachinery.com

Plastic tubes can't contain their popularity

For tube makers, the news is just as good as it is for plastic container manufacturers. Material consumption will reach nearly 70 million pounds. The value of this demand totals $265 million a year.

Tubes, like their container counterparts, continue to attract consumers in multiple market categories because of their ease of use, especially in dispensing. Manufacturers like them because they're less costly to produce than plastic bottles. Tubes are also squeezing out glass in prestige skin cream and lotion packaging. Like containers, tubes can be made from either polyethylene, the preferred resin due to its rigidity, or polypropylene. Coextruded tubes with multiple layers are more flexible than their monolayer counterparts and can be molded into unique textures for added visual appeal on the retail shelf.