Case histories

10/11/2015

New PET packaging for PONTI. SIPA helped Ponti to convert HDPE glaze packaging into a squeezable attractive PET bottle

Ponti —the most famous Italian producer of vinegar, pickles, condiments and sauces— with its gastronomic glazes,offers intense flavours in a dense liquid that merges modernity and heritage and which is just dying to bring all sorts of dishes to life. Ponti has been using SIPA SFR rotary stretch-blow molding machines for a few years now to produce 1-L PET bottles for various wine vinegars. In 2014, it took its first linear machine, an SFL, with 4 blowing cavities to produce a new design of small bottles for its Gastronomic Glazes. The Ponti Gastronomic Glazes have been on the market for a while, but they were originally bottled in HDPE.

The new PET versions were launched with an extensive publicity campaign on Italian TV. They have a personalized and more attractive look, both in terms of their shape and also because the bottles have a beautiful shine that shows the contents in their best light. The PET bottles come in two squeezable sizes, holding around 145 or 250 g of product, for each flavour. The bottles themselves weigh 14.5 g. SIPA provided Ponti with a fully comprehensive package deal: not only did it supply the processing equipment, it also produced original designs and prototypes, product testing and other complementary services.

SIPA has a well-proven capability to develop and prototype new bottle designs for its customers. It has partnered with numerous customers, around the world and across various sectors, to develop containers with innovative features that exploit the potential of PET to its maximum. In its prototyping operations, SIPA can produce original new preforms and containers, optimize existing preforms and containers and develop and test containers using different PET resins.

The company’s test laboratory, equipped with 16 laboratory machines, is certified by leading brand owners in the food and drink industry. The new bottles are relatively simple to blow, so the label has to be in exactly the right position so particular attention did have to be paid to the bases to make sure they are oriented correctly during the high-speed filling and labelling operation as well as to how the bases behaved during filling.

The bottles have a champagne bottle-style base, higher at the center than around the rim. In early trials, with the bottles still hot from the stretch-blow operation as they were filled, the internal pressure of up to 35 bar tended to flatten out the bases. SIPA optimized the blowing sequence so that the bases were cool enough by the time they were filled to resist the filling pressure and retain their shape. And so they did. Tests carried out in the SIPA laboratory included standard checks on dimensions and top load strength. In addition, controls were carried out to ensure that the bottles retain their oval shape over time.