DENMARK – The Danish brewery group, Carlsberg has unveiled two new research prototypes of its green fibre bottle as the company makes further progress on creating the world’s first ‘paper’ beer bottle.
Carlsberg is seeking to develop the packaging technology made from sustainably-sourced wood fibres that is both 100% bio-based and fully recyclable to support its sustainable packaging innovation journey, a key part of its sustainability programme dubbed Together Towards ZERO.
The two new research prototypes are made from sustainably-sourced wood fibre, are fully recyclable and have an inner barrier to allow the bottles to contain beer.
According to the brewer, one prototype uses a thin recycled PET polymer film barrier, and the other a 100% bio-based PEF polymer film barrier.
Carlsberg said that these prototypes will be used to test the barrier technology as Carlsberg seeks a solution to achieve their ultimate ambition of a 100% bio-based bottle without polymers.
Myriam Shingleton, vice president group development at Carlsberg Group, said: “We continue to innovate across all our packaging formats, and we are pleased with the progress we’ve made on the Green Fibre Bottle so far.
“While we are not completely there yet, the two prototypes are an important step towards realising our ultimate ambition of bringing this breakthrough to market.
“Innovation takes time and we will continue to collaborate with leading experts in order to overcome remaining technical challenges, just as we did with our plastic-reducing Snap Pack.”
New Partnerships
Carlsberg also announced it has been joined by other leading global companies who are united in their vision of developing sustainable packaging through the advancement of paper bottle technology.
Carlsberg kicked off the project to develop bottles made from sustainably sourced wood fibres in 2015 alongside with ecoXpac, BillerudKorsnäs, and post-doctoral researchers from the Danish Technical University, supported by Innovation Fund Denmark.
These combined efforts have resulted in the emergence of Paboco, the Paper Bottle Company – a joint venture between BillerudKorsnäs and bottle manufacturing specialist Alpla.
Carlsberg has now announced that it will now be joined by The Coca-Cola Company, The Absolut Company and L’Oréal in a paper bottle community.
Carlsberg said its packaging improvements are part of its long-standing progress of betterment and innovation, including developing scientific breakthroughs such as pure yeast and the pH scale.
The global brewing company noted that that these are also is part of its commitment to zero carbon emissions at its breweries and a 30% reduction in its full value chain carbon footprint by 2030.
