UK glass packaging manufacturer Beatson Clark has played a key role in setting a new international standard for the production of Alpha Sirop bottles.
Beatson Clark produces hundreds of thousands of these bottles every year, and when the team, headed by design engineer Alan Haigh, noticed that there was a problem with the fill capacity of these containers it brought this to the attention of the International Standards Organisation with recommendations on how the situation could be improved.
'Certain liquids require more neck space either for shaking the product before opening or because the filling process can make the product foam slightly, which makes the automated filling equipment believe the bottle is full when it is not,' Haigh explained.
'Because of these implications, most companies choose to purchase the next size in the range, which is not a problem in the case of smaller bottles because they increase in size in small increments. However, with the larger bottles they would have to jump up by between 50 and 200ml, which would not be at all suitable.'
To address the problem Beatson Clark suggested alterations to the shoulders of the bottles so that while the size for packing remains the same, the brimful capacity is significantly increased. Following these recommendations the new ISO11418-2 standard for Alpha Sirops is now in place.
Beatson Clark has now made the changes to all its moulds and tested them successfully so that the next production run will conform to the new standard.