It's always had iconic packs, but now, as Simon Clarke finds, the soft drinks industry is using that packaging to push its brands amid another inevitable push - to go green

Iconic packaging has been the cornerstone of the soft drinks industry for a century or more, but in recent years the industry has been caught between two imperatives: to create packaging that enhances a soft drink's brand and drives sales; and to comply with ever-more stringent environmental requirements.

In effect, the environment has become the centre of many brands' identities as manufacturers flag up their environmental credentials on-pack. As Jill Ardagh, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, says: "The environment is a fundamental driver - because of legal and political factors - in terms of recycling and minimisation of packaging. In a sense it becomes the norm - all their competitors are doing it," says Ardagh.

Recyclability, energy use, water scarcity and ethical sourcing of ingredients are all key factors now for the industry. This in turn has had significant effects on the quantity and type of materials used to create drinks packaging.

"The thrust of industrial innovation is in recyclability and the use of recycled materials," notes Ardagh. Behind this lies the Packaging Waste Directive, which requires soft-drinks brand owners to reduce packaging, cut packaging waste going to landfill and increase recovery and recycling. It's no empty requirement - in July 2009, Red Bull was fined £271,800 by the Environment Agency for failing to meet its requirements to recover and recycle packaging waste.

In addition, the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2003 dictate packaging volume and weight must be the minimum amount to maintain necessary levels of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the packed product and for the consumer.

But Ardagh does not believe this limits the creativity of soft drinks packaging. Citing design award-winning brands such as Ty Nant, however, she stresses that there is still plenty of room for creativity in the soft drinks sector. "There's a really wide variety of packaging in soft drinks. In contrast, look at a supermarket aisle of breakfast cereals - all the packaging is very similar-looking boxes, with the occasional bag."

One key effect of the industry's need to improve its environmental performance is the dominance of PET as a packaging material, at 72% by product volume. PET's crucial advantage over glass and metal is weight, which has benefits in both product distribution and waste collection and processing. PET can also be recycled in a closed loop. "Production in plastic is also much easier," says Ardagh. "There's less breakage and damage to production machinery."

The need for packaging minimisation has seen a number of changes to container design. An extra moulded base on a typical plastic drinks bottle has given way to extrusions in the body of the bottle itself to keep it upright on the shelf, for example, while cans have also been made thinner and lighter. But there are limits to how little material can be used if packaging's protective function is to be maintained.

As a result, full recyclability is a key goal for the industry. This means ensuring that as much of the packaging waste stream as possible is uniform and easily processed. Coloured plastics, such as the now discontinued black Tango bottle, are largely being phased out in favour of more easily processed clear packaging.

It also means innovations such as biodegradable packaging are something of a blind alley. "The drawback of biodegradable packaging is you can't put it into the recycling stream, and it's confusing for consumers as the bottles look the same," says Ardagh.

All this means that an important battleground for most soft drinks branding is the label, and this faces increasing constraints on space. The need to meet statutory regulations for ingredients and other consumer information leaves less space for brand messaging and identity.

Interactive packs
One response has come from the British Retail Consortium, whose universal on-pack recycling label aims to provide consumers with compact and standardised information. Another is the use of interactive technology on packaging to draw consumers to the web and social networking. Last year, Pepsi printed quick response (QR) codes on 400 million packs, allowing consumers to use their mobile phone to scan the code and receive more product information and offers.

However, the imperative to use fewer resources runs counter to the recent drive to reduce obesity, as governments encourage food and beverage makers to produce smaller pack sizes to combat this perceived threat. It also means manufacturers must use different materials, such as cartons, to hold the product. "PET isn't at optimum efficiency at 250ml, because there are issues with CO2 loss and the shelf life goes down to two months," says Ardagh. "The 250ml PET bottle hasn't had a lot of uptake."

There is still room for marketing-led packaging design, though. While the public might think that drinking is a simple choice based on thirst, for the drinks companies, it's a little bit more complex than that. "Drinks companies are redefining what drinking is," notes Ardagh. "Any time can be a drinking occasion."

While this sounds strange, it's actually a clever strategy to, in effect, move drinking away from its purely utilitarian function. "Sports and energy drinks offer both hydration and refreshment," notes Ardagh, "and the key growth market is functionality, such as enhanced waters that offer health and wellbeing."

In addition, Ardagh cites the faster pace of modern life as an important driver for packaging development. "People are leading their lives outside the home," she notes. "Portability has never been more important."

The main result has been growth in the use of contour bottles, bottles with sports caps and drinks pouches, such as the new Vimto 250ml pouch aimed at the teen market. "Pouches are fun, they fit in lunchboxes - there's less mess than cans or bottles," says Ardagh. "They're resealable and compressable."

Contour bottles allow consumers to carry a drink even if they don't have a bag, while sports caps help prevent mess and allow easy drinking. As a result, and also because of PET's weight advantages, the 500ml bottle has come to prominence in a sector that has hitherto been dominated by 330ml cans.

However, it  seems the can's days aren't numbered just yet. "Cans are still popular in vending, catering and bars," says Ardagh. "They stack well and have good shelf life." In addition, the recycling rate for aluminium cans beats plastic bottles hands down, not to mention the fact that manufacturers have legacy equipment designed to manufacture cans for the 330ml size point - equipment that would be expensive to scrap or replace.

There are other reasons why PET won't come to eclipse other packaging materials entirely. Glass, for example, also tells a strong recycling story and is still popular in the on-trade, as it is perceived as a premium material, which helps with price mark-ups for mixers and soft drinks.

Nostalgia and novelty marketing also come into play. To complement the positioning of Pepsi Raw as an all natural, upmarket drink, Pepsi has opted to use a glass bottle with an old-fashioned crimped crown cap. Although this seems to fly in the face of the move to an "on-the-go" lifestyle (few people tend to carry a bottle opener), the drink's positive reception has meant it is being rolled out for the take-home market. J2O is another brand that uses the crimp top-glass bottle combination to establish its upmarket image.

"This is an innovative and highly competitive industry," stresses Ardagh. "In the past two to three years, I've seen more product development than in the past 10."

GREEN SCHEMES
Drinks firms have been clamouring to make their environmental efforts public. Here, we pick out two big brands' key measures.

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) has packaged its CSR goals as ‘Commitment 2020'. It aims to recover the equivalent of 100% of its packaging by 2020 - last year it recycled 125,000 tonnes and is aiming for 200,000 tonnes in 2010.

New, lighter low-profile plastic closures, and weight reductions of 5% for cans and 20% for glass bottles helped CCE eliminate 31,000 tonnes - or 2.7% - of packaging in 2008. The aim is a total reduction of 100,000 tonnes by 2010. Recycled content now makes up more than 50% of cans and 45% of glass bottles, while its goal for PET is 25% in Europe from 4%.

CCE cut its water use ratio - the amount of water used to produce a quantity of drinks product - by 12% to 1.73 between 2005 and 2008, with the goal of achieving a figure of 1.3. It has also introduced smaller packs and extended front of pack nutritional information.

Britvic
Britvic, whose core brands include Pepsi, Tango and Robinsons, plans to eliminate 5,000 tonnes of packaging by 2010, compared to 2007/2008 volume, send no food and packaging waste to landfill by 2015 and complete a UK trial using only rPET for packaging by the end of this year.

Weight reductions of 3.5g in the Robinsons litre bottle have saved around 330 tonnes of PET a year, and cut cardboard in-store tray packaging by 5%.

Britvic has signed up 95% of its packaging and other suppliers to its Ethical Trading Policy. It plans to increase this to an audited 100% by December 2010 for direct suppliers and by 2014 for indirect suppliers.

It has also rolled out more on-pack contact details and guideline daily amounts nutritional labelling.

On top of this, the company has set CO2 reduction goals of 20% by 2010 from 1990 levels by tonne of product, and plans to cut water use by 20% by 2020 compared to 2007.