Seeking Lightweight PET bottles while extending or maintaining shelf-life and thermal stability.

Background

Current plastic beverage packaging presents limitations in shelf life, stability, and integrity throughout manufacturing and transportation. PepsiCo is looking for solutions for their beverage polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottling needs. With commitment to sustainability, one focus area is to introduce more sustainable packaging through innovation. Aligned with their strategy to minimize single-use plastic, switching to lightweight packaging represents a solution that has been explored. However, lightweight PET bottles are more susceptible to damage, especially during production and transport. Thinner walls are less rigid, more prone to deformation under stress, vulnerable to pressure changes, and less able to withstand mechanical stresses and impacts. Additionally, PET bottles that undergo the hot fill process - where the beverage is filled into the PET container at high temperatures (175 to 195F) to ensure sterilization and preservation - often experience structural instability and top-load issues, failing to withstand vertical compressive forces during stacking and capping. These bottles frequently suffer dents throughout the production line and transportation, causing them to fail PepsiCo’s quality standards and do not meet desired freshness and quality shelf-life goals. Existing market technologies, such as some coatings and resins, involve high capital costs and have not proven cost-effective nor efficient for PepsiCo’s needs. Therefore, PepsiCo is seeking more effective solutions in terms of both efficacy and cost. They are open to resin, preform and bottle technologies to lightweight PET packaging. Technologies capable of enhancing the structural stability of lightweight PET bottles, addressing both integrity and extended shelf life, would not only ensure the bottle can withstand the stresses of production, transportation, handling, and storage but also allow it to be filled to the maximum volume without compromising structure. This would lead to a more efficient use of packaging materials, reducing the amount of plastic needed per unit of beverage.

Key Success Criteria

Must-have requirements

● Solutions must extend the shelf life of carbonated soft drinks and/or enhance the structural
stability of lightweight PET bottles. Current shelf life is between 7-12 weeks depending on bottle
size.
● Solutions should demonstrate the potential to be cost-effective and scalable for large-scale
production.

Preferred Requirements

● Solutions that are FDA approved or in the process of approval to meet food-grade requirements.
● Solutions that aim to achieve cost efficiency with a payback period (breakeven) ≤24 months
Technology readiness level: 4-9
● Validated in relevant environment.
● Demonstrated in relevant environment.
● Regulatory approval
● Product in production
● Product in market

Possible Approaches
Solutions of interest include

● New cost-effective barrier coatings
● Novel additives for PET bottles
● Novel Materials
● Enhanced PET resin formulations
● Advanced mold design techniques

Approaches Not of Interest

● Solutions that negatively impact the recyclability of PET bottles.
● Established approaches to lightweight packaging that are already known and in use which require
significant capital investment or have industry restrictive IP.
● Technologies that do not work with PET plastics.
● Technologies that require excessively high capital investment for implementation.

Preferred Collaboration types

- PepsiCo is open to a range of collaboration types
- Resources available when collaborating with PepsiCo
- Sponsored Research
- Funding is proposal-dependent typically ranges from $25,000 to $100,000. Preference will be given
to an integrated team that has all of the capabilities needed to develop the model. PepsiCo is excited
to partner with external researchers.

Expertise

- Work directly with PepsiCo team of scientists and engineers with deep experience in Packaging, food science, and bringing new products to market at a massive scale.
- Tools and Technologies
- Test under Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)