Tropicana adopts innovative packaging

Tropicana Products has begun packaging its Pure Premium orange juice in a new wide-mouth 1.75-litre polyethylene terephthalate (PET) carafe. The product, designed and manufactured by US-based firm Graham Packaging, will make the juice easier to pour thanks to its unique design.

"This is the first true carafe in PET,"​ said John Denner, Graham Packaging's director of PET packaging development. "It has a 63-millimeter wide-mouth opening, which makes it easy to pour, and it looks just like a glass carafe.​

"It has all the other advantages of plastic as well: a no-drip finish, easy to grip and handle, and, of course, it's much lighter than glass and it won't break."​

The carafe is the first commercial PET container with a blown finish. Screw-on threads make it suitable for cold filling, but it can be used to hold hot liquids as well. The carafe is also stackable as the cap of one bottle fits into the base of the bottle on top. The blow-moulded PET carafe is also significantly lighter than a similar package made with conventional injection- finish technology.

Graham Packaging also manufactures a 1.75-litre PET bottle for Tropicana Twister and a multi-layer polypropylene bottle for Tropicana Smoothies. The company, which has developed a reputation as a leading designer and manufacturer of customized blow-molded plastic containers for food and beverages, employs approximately 3,900 people at 55 plants throughout North America, Europe and Latin America.

It produced more than nine billion units and recorded total worldwide net sales of $906.7 million (€811.8m) in 2002.