Sidel partners with Coca-Cola to create new Fanta bottle

The new Fanta bottle features a spiral design, giving it an unusual, asymmetric structure.

Photo courtesy of Sidel

First appearing on shelves in the1940s, Fanta is Coca-Cola’s biggest brand after Coke and has evolved over the years, with a number of bottle redesigns. To make the Fanta Splash’s bottle shape stand out in the market, Coca-Cola worked with Sidel and the Drink Works design agency to create a new proprietary packaging shape, applicable to both PET and glass bottles.

The new bottle features a spiral, inspired by the twisting of an orange to release its juice. It is based on a series of ribs decorated with small bubbles, plus a torsion in the bottom half. This spiral gives the Fanta bottle an unusual, asymmetric structure, which presented a real challenge in terms of developing a container able to withstand deformation and stability issues.

The new bottle shape required a precise understanding of how PET behaves under pressure, particularly with regard to how the carbonation of the beverage can potentially deform the bottle sections, which could lead to the drink spilling. Just like its predecessor, the new bottle also had to be 100 percent recyclable.

“It is definitively critical that all opposing sides of the bottle have the same developed length to avoid issues with perpendicularity,” explains Jérome Neveu, packaging expert at Sidel.

Coca-Cola also wanted to ensure alignment of the label panel size and position with Sprite and Contour bottles. Drink Works did this by moving the existing label panel further up toward the neck of the bottle. # An alternate 500-ml spiral bottle also has been developed to ensure stability, specifically for gravity-fed inclined shelves.

For more information, visit www.sidel.com

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Crystal Lindell has more than 10 years of journalism experience, and worked primarily at daily newspapers before joining BNP Media 2010. Before joining Food Engineering as the Managing Editor, she was the managing editor of a sister publication, Candy Industry Magazine, where she learned first-hand the joys of eating chocolate for breakfast. Lindell holds a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois – Springfield and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Western Illinois University.