The world market for beer filled in PET bottles and closed by plastic screw caps is steadily growing. Germany was the first of several countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, to introduce beer in PET bottles. To secure the quality of the beer BERICAP introduced an oxygen scavenger, which absorbed the oxygen in the headspace of the PET beer bottle. This was an important development as beer is an oxygen-sensitive product and to absorb the oxygen was an important step to secure the quality of the beer during its shelf life.

BERICAP initially introduced the DoubleSeal SuperShorty® Crown O2 scavenger closure suitable for the PCO 1881 neck for PET beer bottles into the German market. Outside Europe, the Chinese market has now begun using the PCO 1881 neck and BERICAP’s DoubleSeal SuperShorty Crown O2 scavenger.

MARTENS China together with its joint-venture partner FEG and the collaborator SUNTORY from Japan have set up a new filling line of PCO 1881 necks and started filling beer in PET barrier bottles using BERICAP’s DoubleSeal SuperShorty Crown O2 scavenger. The first bottles are already available in the market.

Beer as an oxygen-sensitive product challenges the PET bottle and the closure with respect to oxygen transmission. Packing high-quality beer in PET bottles requires barrier properties for the bottles and oxygen-scavenging properties for the closure to absorb oxygen in the headspace on the one side and to avoid ingress of oxygen on the other side.

Especially for the beer market, BERICAP has developed a crown cork design which looks very similar to the traditional beer crown cork and therefore maintains the product integrity of beer. The DoubleSeal SuperShorty Crown O2S is equipped with an oxygen scavenger for the beer market.