News

PET bottles are as ubiquitous as the mineral water they contain. But with brands looking for differentiation and keen to address consumers’ environmental concerns, the delivery format of choice may have to change.

They used to call it “Adam’s Ale” – what you drank if you couldn’t afford anything more interesting. How times change. From being a precautionary measure resorted to during long-haul holidays, bottled water now occupies an entire aisle at the local supermarket, and most rosette-winning restaurants are likely to employ their own dedicated water sommeliers.

Water out of a bottle rather than from the tap has evolved from yuppie status symbol to convenient necessity; in 500ml size,  it is just another essential appendage for Joe Public on the go. Thus, PET has proved a popular material. It’s lightweight, easily portable and simple to dispose of.

According to figures published by Mintel, sales of bottled water via the retail trade hit 2,158m litres last year, up by 41.5 per cent since 2001. Still water represents 85 per cent  of that £1,700m business and, no doubt, both total and percentage share will have soared to new levels following this summer’s spate of 30°C and above temperatures.

PET preference
While glass remains the preferred option in the on-trade and in restaurants and hotels, elsewhere consumers prefer the weight advantage of PET when purchasing in bulk, and the handiness of smaller sports-cap bottles – accounting for 21 per cent of sales from convenience outlets – for drinking on the go.

Britvic is the latest soft drinks brand owner to extend its product range into the still water category with Drench. PET-bottled in 500ml size and targeted directly at the impulse channel, its on-shelf marketing pitch represents a break from established design, says Andy Knowles, managing director of Jones Knowles Ritchie, the design agency responsible for the brand.

“Drench is looking to break the design mould by eschewing all that stuff about mountains and provenance, which is what most mineral water positioning is created around. Rather than drone on about its Yorkshire borehole origins, we’ve gone for one very straightforward message. It delivers exactly what it says on the bottle: 100 per cent spring water.

“The PET format is very light, portable, robust and comfortable in the hand,” he adds. “It has got lots of good things about it and is becoming the de facto standard format because it’s so cost-effective. Also, people are starting to heed the advice to drink a couple of litres during the day, and are more confident in walking about with a bottle of water in their hand. It’s not always practical to get to a tap.”

Practicality isn’t necessarily a consideration with bottled water. Icelandic Glacial is launching a new bottled water into the UK this autumn, with sales clearly targeted outside the commodity sector. “In the UK, brands such as Evian, Volvic, Vittel and Highland Spring are all priced around the same point, whereas in the US, there’s a higher priced category that we’d term as ‘super-premium’ and where Icelandic Glacial is growing very quickly,” says Icelandic COO Patrick Racz.

“In the US we’re aiming to have a market share of one per cent by the end of 2008. That equates to about 1m litres, and we’re looking to emulate that rate of penetration in the UK within two years of launch.”

Growing restaurant presence
Upmarket though its pretensions might be, Icelandic Glacial will still be bottled in PET confirms Racz. “It’s undoubtedly the carrier of choice. Even in the food service sector, which used to be predominantly glass, a growing number of restaurants are now selling PET bottled water.”

Shape, however, will provide on-shelf differentiation. “If you look at the profile of our bottle, each of the four sides differs from the other three,” says Racz. “We also have four different label backgrounds. So when the bottle goes through the filling line, it can be at any one of four different angles and using those four different labels. This creates a very subtle landscaped effect on-shelf, where the likelihood of there being six identical bottles in a row is 1,048,000 to one. The consumer wouldn’t necessarily notice that, but in the time estimated to select a product the subconscious will pick it up. It all goes to direct the split-second differentiation needed to separate a product out from the shelf noise and clutter of competing brands.”

Glass may have retreated to the higher ground, but other formats are lining up to challenge PET’s supremacy in the still water category.

Having already made some impact within The Netherlands by providing branded containers for promotional events staged by the likes of MTV and Virgin, Tetra Pak UK Prisma Aseptic 500ml cartons were selected for a Topman press and industry event during last November’s London Fashion Week.
The carton was well enough received for Topman to commission further quantities in a modified design, branded as Topman Spring Water, to be distributed at an ongoing programme of student events to advertise discounts available at the group’s UK stores.

Amcor Flexibles has also been sufficiently encouraged by the adoption, across Europe, of its AquaFlexCan ‘tear ’n sip’ pouch to look for UK sales. Offering a comparable shelf-life to rigid PET bottles and incorporating barrier properties to ensure content freshness, the pouch is targeted at the out-of-home portion controlled sector.

Unlike the PET bottle format, which is dependent upon incorporating a sleeve, both solutions also allow for direct on-pack print and graphics to carry branding.

PLA alternatives
With greener packaging propositions figuring more prominently in retail thinking, however, the biggest competition could come via PLA-based alternatives. The first of these, ‘Belu’, is now available at selected Waitrose stores, with further roll-out to other major multiples expected later this year.

While Belu appears to sport all the right consumer environmental tags – it made its first appearance at last year’s Live8 event, for example – there are still some questions to be answered, not least in terms of provenance; the bulk of corn starch polymer emanates from the US, and in the main will be genetically modified.

Performance is also an issue. Racz says, “It’s a brilliant idea, just don’t put it near a radiator. But eventually, if they can develop that and give the bottle more stability, then what a fantastic concept.”
Meanwhile, leading category consultancy Zenith International chairman Richard Hall predicts a more immediate response. “It’s very difficult to see anything that might seriously impede PET’s hold on the water category over the next five years; it ticks almost all the consumer preference and manufacturing cost boxes.

“PLA-based alternatives, however, do represent an interesting proposition, though their impact on the market is as yet very limited. Whatever the adoption of biodegradables in the sector, one more immediate knock-on effect of growing consumer concerns about the environment might well be to cause more recyclate to be introduced into established PET solutions.”


The case for glass
While PET out-performs glass on the shelf, the margin of difference is far narrower in the food service sector

According to data supplied by Euromonitor International, 46 per cent of the 382m volume of bottled still water sold through the sector last year was in glass, which also accounted for 75 per cent of carbonated (over 114m bottles)

That restaurants keen to meet Michelin star standards are required to dispense water from a glass rather than PET bottle is one factor. Another, though, may be a consumer driven distinction between what’s acceptable in-home and on the go, and what seems more appropriate when dining out

Research conducted by the glass sector’s promotional body Glasspac indicates:
- 72 per cent of respondents believe glass is more natural than other packaging materials

- 71 per cent of consumers prefer to see a glass bottle on the table rather than a plastic one

- 65 per cent of consumers believe packaging products in glass suggests quality