Cross-over innovation: What beverage packaging can learn from other industries
What has chocolate got to do with glass? And what do cars have in common with bottles? The Ardagh Group has been investigating how technologies regularly used by other industries can be used in beverage packaging.
We spoke to Sharon Todd, head of marketing, glass Europe, at the Ardagh Group at Brau Beviale in Germany this month.
“One of the areas we’ve been successful at is cross-over innovation: we’re looking at technologies that exist at the moment: but aren’t utilized in packaging,” she explained.
Take for example glass embossing – which draws on technology currently used in chocolate mold manufacturing – to create more detailed designs on bottles.
And then there’s decorating glass bottles using powder instead of wet paint, by electrostatically charging powder and earthing the bottles, so that the powder is attracted to the bottle. It’s technology that’s being drawn on from the motor and electrical appliance industry.
