Closure fits short neck bottles

Increasing spending on food prepared or eaten away from home, which tends to be served inconvenience sizes, as well as a general consumer move towards smaller serve units is on theincrease.

The SuperShorty from Bericap meets the new PCO 1881 short height neck finish standard set by the International Society of BeverageTechnologists (ISBT). The association's members include brand owners, preform and closure manufacturers,and those who make filling lines, capper and blowmoulding machines.

Bericap says that it will begin supplying its SuperShorty closure to fillers of short neck PCO 1881 standard bottles at the beginning of 2007.The SuperShorty incorporates the company's DoubleSeal system and can be equipped with an inshell moulded oxygen scavenging liner.

The SuperShorty comes with two different outside designs. One has a crown look, the other has acarbonated soft drinks look. The crown look is of interest to bottlers who want the design to be as close to the traditional glass bottle witha metal crown.

The crown closure is targeted at those who fill beer into PET bottles and carbonated soft drink (CSD) fillers. The CSD version targets bottlers who want to reduce weightin a bid to increase savings.

Bericap can equip both closure variants with an inshell moulded oxygen scavenging liner for products like beer or juices.

The company said it is currently designing a new SuperShorty closure for still water which will provide furtherweight savings.

The short height neck conforming to PCO 1881 standards offers weight savings of 1.3 grams, compared to PCO 1810 orPCO28, Bericap claimed. The SuperShorty in a crown design offers weight savings of 0.4 g, while theCSD one cuts 0.6 grams off the weight.

Bericap claims to be the third largest manufacturer of plastic closures in Europe. The companyhas 18 factories in 17 countries across the world.