At this 2018’s Blow Moulding Conference held in Cologne, Germany, Sidel gave insights into increased PET packaging shapes opportunities and how to achieve them with precise and reliable heating processes. Sidel’s focus was SteadyEDGE, a patented base solution for innovative and attractive PET package design variants that ensures stable and cost-efficient production.

From 18-20 June, the international conference on technical and business developments in plastic bottles and containers gathered technical, sales and business experts representing entire packaging supply chain. This second instalment reviewed current and future market trends, assessed latest material innovations, technology and product design, shedding light on relevant developments in customer requirements and regulations in the blow moulding field.

It is estimated that last year, approximately 31 million metric tonnes of thermoplastic polymers were processed by blow moulding globally.

Addressing opportunities for PET within the Food, Home and Personal Care (FHPC) markets, José Andre, Technical Sales Manager at Sidel, presented the SteadyEDGE packaging solution. Increasing design freedom and simplifying production of more elegant containers with less curved bases, it offers FHPC producers enhanced brand differentiation options with maximum efficiency.

SteadyEDGE is designed to meet the challenge of producing flat, oval and rectangular containers in PET requiring specific preferential heating blow moulding process, allowing delivery of optimum material distribution to achieve top quality package.

Its innovative base technology enlarges marketing opportunities for containers with complex shapes and large labelling surfaces. Specifically, a sharp base radius as low as one millimetre, is achieved through a patented base mould system: Base OverStroke System (BOSS). BOSS is available for both Sidel SBO Universal and Sidel Matrix blowing machines in diverse formats.

Compared to standard preferential heating, SteadyEDGE reduces packaging weight from 22 grams to 20 grams, lowering blowing pressure needed to shape the package base, and increasing output speed—achieving quick return-on-investment.