Drink spillers, rejoice!
Canadian Plastics
For most of us, any development making it easier to hold onto our drink is a welcome one indeed -- which is why we should raise a cheer for McCormick Distilling Co.'s new polyethylene terephthalate (P...
For most of us, any development making it easier to hold onto our drink is a welcome one indeed — which is why we should raise a cheer for McCormick Distilling Co.’s new polyethylene terephthalate (PET) vodka bottle, featuring a built-in handle.
Manufactured by Amcor PET Packaging, the bottle is said to be an industry first: up until now, no one had been able to successfully create a commercial, handled PET liquor bottle due to the difficulty of blowmolding around a grip.
“We knew that you can’t blowmold a PET handle, and had even looked at a clip-on version, but found that it wouldn’t support the weight,” said Jim Jargo, president and COO of the Weston, Mo.-based McCormick Distilling.
At that point, the company approached Amcor.
“One of the trickiest elements was to make sure the grip was perfectly placed inside the mold. If that’s not done correctly, you won’t capture the grip or you will puncture the material,” said Jonathan Jarman, a project engineer with Amcor.
Since there were no commercially available units, a proprietary “reheat, blow” machine was purpose-built for the project.
Amcor PET Packaging (Ann Arbor, Mich.); www.amcor.com; 734-428-9741