TGI Friday's PET single-serve, ready-to-drink cocktails look very 'cool'

When United Distillers & Vintners (UDV) (Stamford, CT) recently launched a new 200-ml polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle for its TGI Friday's On the Rocks line of single-serve, ready-to-drink cocktails, the company gained several advantages over the glass bottle it replaced.

"We were in the process of redesigning our full TGI Friday's Cocktails line and decided that we wanted to enhance the convenience and portability of our single-serve size by converting to PET," explains Christina Catalano, packaging design director, UDV. "Our goal was to achieve a proprietary and appetizing look."

The new PET bottle, supplied by Schmalbach-Lubeca (Manchester, MI), gives UDV their desired attributes, such as convenient portability and a proprietary "icy" look. The 200-ml glass container being replaced was round with vertical flutes. UDV instructed Schmalbach-Lubeca to produce the PET version with a pattern that would resemble pieces of ice.

"Creating the ice cube surface was a real challenge," says Larry Reed, director custom liquor sales, Schmalbach-Lubeca. "The only way to replicate the random ice cube pieces was to hand etch each ice cube shape onto the mold surface. This was followed by a gentler form of sand blasting — referred to as bead blasting — to smooth out the lines in-between the cuts."

Feels like glass
Besides the proprietary look, UDV also requested that the new 200-ml PET bottle have a solid glass-like feel. Schmalbach-Lubeca chose a 30-gram preform to keep the container walls thick and solid yet still enable efficient blow-molding processes.

Still another challenge was to engineer an indexing feature that would orient the bottles for labeling without disturbing the aesthetics or negatively affecting the stability. Three separate labels (front, back and neck) needed to be applied. The front and back labels had to be placed in recessed, "ice free" areas.

UDV's Dick Blanchard, director of Brand Change Technical Support, worked in conjunction with Schmalbach-Lubeca and Krones — the cold-glue labeler supplier — to design an "intravenous slot" (or notch) cut into a small section of the sidewall where it meets the base. The design formed properly in the blowing process and functioned well to index the bottles through the Krones labeler.

The bottles are filled at UDV's copacker, where they are delivered in bulk, packed in layers. One layer is swept onto the conveyor at a time.

National roll-out
The On the Rocks line was rolled out nationally this past summer and is available in seven flavors: Margarita, Mud Slide, Pina Colada, Strawberry Daiquiri, White Russian, Censored on the Beach and Long Island Iced Tea. The launch represents another example of UDV's leadership position in new PET packages and glass-to-PET conversions.

UDV North America Inc. and Guinness Bass Import Co. are the spirits, wine and beer divisions of Diageo plc in the United States and Canada, a leading consumer brand company. In addition to TGIF, key brands include Johnnie Walker and J&B Scotch whiskies, Smirnoff vodka, Gordon's gin, Baileys cream liqueur and Guinness stout.

For more information:
Schmalbach-Lubeca, Plastic Containers USA, Tel: 734-428-4515, Fax: 734-428-4622
Krones Inc., Tel: 414-409-4000, Fax: 414-409-4100

Edited by Bill Noone
Managing Editor, PackagingNetwork.com