Environment

Coca-Cola to test market paper bottle prototype in limited trial

Coca-Cola's paper bottle will be test marketed in Hungary
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola's paper bottle will be test marketed in Hungary
Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola Company has announced it will be trialing a paper bottle prototype in a limited run of 2,000 later this year. The test sales of the plant-based beverage AdeZ will be conducted in Hungary through the e-grocery retailer Kifli.hu.

Selling beverages in paper containers is as old as the milk carton, which was called a paper bottle back in 1915. However, they aren't suitable for all beverages and certainly not for carbonated ones that need something a bit more robust. That being said, a paper bottle is very attractive from an environmental point of view, since paper is biodegradable and relatively easy to recycle.

In 2020, Coca-Cola's R&D division in Brussels, along with the Danish startup Paper Bottle Company (Paboco) and working with Carlsberg, L’Oréal and The Absolut Company, came up with a bottle consisting of a hard paper shell lined with a bio-based plastic that is also used for the cap.

Coca-Cola emphasizes that the bottle is still in development as the company assesses the prototype bottle's performance, durability, and ability to protect its contents. That being said, Coca-Cola wants to go ahead with consumer testing to determine how it performs in the real world and measure how well people take to the new receptacle.

The ultimate goal is to produce a 100-percent recyclable bottle for beverages and other products that can stand up to liquids, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. Ideally, the bottle would be made entirely from recycled materials and could be recycled itself as paper.

"The trial we are announcing today is a milestone for us in our quest to develop a paper bottle," says Daniela Zahariea, director of technical supply chain and innovation, Coca‑Cola Europe. "People expect Coca‑Cola to develop and bring to market new, innovative and sustainable types of packaging. That’s why we are partnering with experts like Paboco, experimenting openly and conducting this first in-market trial."

The video below showcases the paper bottle.

Source: Coca-Cola

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8 comments
Username
Excellent. As long as the manufacturing process is not worse than the plastic it replaces!
Steve White
Brilliant, at last. Let that be an end to all plastic bottles.
dschaetzler
How about providing concentrated syrup to retail? Pepsi does so (marketed for Sodastream). It is a wild undertaking to get hold of Coca Cola concentrate, even postmix-grade. Wouldn't be syrup in retail the better contribution to protect the environment, compared to some greenwashing paper bottle efforts? Of course, aside from using deposit bottles only...
Yusuf
Does seem to be more about marketing than sustainability. What's the point of replacing a plastic bottle that is already 100% recyclable with a paper-plastic version that is not?
buzzclick
Are customers going to take to these paper bottles? Aluminum cans are cheap to produce and easily recyclable. Glass can be re-bottled many times over. Plastic is probably the cheapest to produce but hey, it's plastic. Methinks this new bottle idea ain't gonna fly.
ljaques
Soda drinkers should learn 2 simple concepts: 1) You can't bottle carbonated liquids in paper. and 2) Both the acid and sugar content in sodas are like battery acid in the human body, destroying it from the inside out. Simple lesson: Avoid sodas.
Captain Danger
Aluminum is being recycled every day, has loads of development behind it and with the proper coating can hold just about any beverage.
Why waste time and money on this?
Malcolm Henry
This announcement has a huge potential not only for multiuse bottling but for all food packaging in general. At last there is no excuse to use plastic in any form in the food supply industries. Bio fiber of many types can be utilized for ridged and flexible a packaging including clear wrapping. If one is concerned with the manufacturing cost of a certain packing system, the overall true cost of a article like plastic or ali must take into account waste disposal or recovery before a true product cost can be arrived at which is presently proving extremally high compared with biodegradable / recyclable paper in it many forms. Thanks to Coca Cola this time and my all food manufactures follow suit. Remember that plastic in our food chain is dangerous.