Bottled
down
Rohit
Chawla enumerates the advantages of using pet jars and bottles for packaging
edibles and elaborates on the parameters used to ensure their quality
One
of the best medium for storing foods and beverages, in present times,
is pet jars or bottles. Enter any store and one can find a series of
them stacked one after the other carrying an assortment of edibles.
Pet jars and bottles have most of the functional properties one can
ask for in a good packaging medium. They safeguard their contents against
the environment by protecting them from picking up odour or moisture
or losing their own odour or moisture to the environment. They do not
require display racks or stands and can stand by themselves. These bottles
and jars are extremely easy to handle and ideal for storage and as well
as distribution. They also have the advantage of being virtually unbreakable.
Pet bottles or jars can be broadly defined as a non-porous rigid containers
made of plastic material using various methods of formation. These containers
are generally used for packing of dry products like confectionery items,
diet supplements, tea and coffee in unit form or in powder form. They
can also be used to pack products like soft drinks, juices, water and
sauces, that are in the form of liquid or paste.
In the past, glass bottles were used for packaging food and beverages.
Glass is an inert material in pure form and is highly resistant to acidic
and alkaline substances.
Moreover, the impermeability of glass makes it an ideal medium to package
products that are sensitive to moisture and / or oxidation.
However, the introduction of high quality food grade plastics, has lead
to the slow demise of the glass bottles. Plastic bottles have numerous
advantages over glass bottles:
• Easier to manufacture
• Lighter in weight, hence more they are easier to manage further
entailing lower transportation costs
• Can be given varied shapes
• Can be made of larger sizes without losing dimensional stability
• Virtually unbreakable
• Easy to dispose off and can be recycled.
The plastic bottles, however, cannot match their glass counterparts
in terms of impermeability and neutrality to certain chemicals. Also,
unlike glass bottles, these cannot be re-used for packaging carbonated
beverages because they lose their shine or gloss in a very short usage
span. Another shortcoming is that the only area on the bottle or jar
that can be used to convey an advertising message is the plastic label
or sleeve wrapped around its trunk. This is a major disadvantage as
compared to plastic pouches or duplex board cartons. However, a major
advantage of plastic bottles is that they can be moulded in a variety
of shapes and designs, which is not possible in the case of pouches
or cartons.
While a majority of international brands of packaged drinking water
use eye-catching bottle designs to push their products, their Indian
counterparts are yet to wake up to the fact that bottle design can be
used as an effective marketing tool. In fact, only one of the leading
Indian packaged drinking water company, Manikchand Oxyrich, has launched
its product in a bottle design, which is a creative and different as
compared to others.
Package design aesthetics can play a major role in establishing or altering
the acceptability of any product.
Generally, preformed bottles of desired weight are supplied to the manufacturer,
in bulk, in the shape of a small tube. These tubes are then heated and
blown up into bottles or jars of desired shapes and sizes inside the
mould cavity. This process is known as blow moulding. The following
parameters have to be kept in mind to assess the quality of the bottles:
Weight
Higher weight pet jars and bottles are more rigid
and have better stack load-bearing capability. This holds true provided
the weight distribution is even across the bottle or jar.The bottle
is placed on a Standard Digital Balance of high accuracy and its weight
is recorded. Ideally, the same batch of samples should have very similar
weight range.
Thickness
A major flaw resulting from blow moulding is the
uneven thicknesses of the walls of the bottle. This can happen due to
uneven heating or incorrect blowing. A bottle with very different thickness
of the walls can look ugly and undesirable. In order to check the thickness
and ensure that it is perfect, the bottle is cut open at various places
and the total wall thickness is measured. This is generally expressed
in microns / mm. An analogue or digital standard micrometer is used
for checking the thickness of the bottle. Once again, bottles with higher
thickness are stronger and more rigid. They also have better stack load-bearing
capability provided the thickness is evenly distributed throughout the
bottle.
....C
O N T D
TO
READ FURTHER... SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR
COPY TODAY!!!
