JAPAN - With a total PET market demand in Japan for beverage and sauces (soya etc) exceeding 17.5 billon bottles annually, Hokkai Can’s two plants, in Kumagaya and Nagai, supply in more than 1 billion. Approximately 800 million of these are beverage specific.

As a group Hokkai and subsidiaries, service more than one 10th of the total market producing more than 1.6 billion bottles annually.

The prevalence of more than two million vending machines and small mini-market size stores has driven a revolution in Japan’s packaging industry.

Most obviously the vending machine dimensions tend to restrict the size of the container. But the sheer market penetration and consumer popularity represents a sales channel capable of dictating the pack size throughout the whole retail sector. In Japan, a smaller pack-format dominates.

Forget the single portion pack, in Japan it is the single gulp, it is rare to see 1-litre or even 500ml bottles; 450ml being the norm while sizes can go down to 0.35 ml or even as low as 0.28ml.

However size is merely a superficial issue, the real revolution which has taken place over the past five years has been a major change in the core structure of the entire Japanese packaging industry, particularly in the PET beverage bottle sector.

Prior to 2000 Japanese brand owners subcontracted more than 55 percent of the product filling stage of production retaining only 45 percent of in-house filling (with the exception of Coke which had always retained its own filling capacity).

But by 2005 the ratios reversed with most brand owners resorting to self-filling, and presuming the trend continues at a constant rate, by 2010 less than 30 percent of the Japanese beverage industry will be using filling subcontractors.

A worrying trend, particularly for the Hokkai group, since a subsidiary, Nihon Can Pack, is the largest beverage packer in the country.

As a result, companies like Hokkai Can are increasingly relying on technology and innovation to slow the trend and retain their market advantage.

The key driver of this trend has been the brand owner’s increasing demand for high barrier, asceptic or hot-fill, capability.

In the West, high barrier PET tends to be used in a range of drinks, like fruit juice, tea, beer and various flavoured alcoholic beverages.

But in Japan, high barrier PET bottles are exclusively the domain of hot fill drinks: Chinese and Japanese tea, Coffee (both black and white) and lemonade intended for hot vending (see sidebar story).

Despite the huge numbers of vending machines hot vending still represents a mere 3-4 percent of the total market, but it is growing.

The PET industry was bracing itself for a massive demand increase in 2003, when Asahi beer announced that it was to introduce beer in PET.

However before the product could be launched, Greenpeace Japan initiated a massive campaign of opposition on the basis that the recycling rate for PET was less than 50% while the rate for aluminium was over 70%, and a can weighs about half 0.5 litre PET container at15gm while a PET bottle was 30gms.

In the face of such formidable public opposition in environment-aware Japan, Asahi abruptly dropped the project – despite the fact that PET recycling rates for 2004 topped 75 percent.

Hot Fill bottle technology

Hot fill had been considered problematic for conventional PET due to the increase in the rate of oxygen transmission at temperatures above 60oC, up to six times.

This led to the deterioration of the beverage which reacts adversely with the oxygen, Japanese and Chinese tea was a particular worry, since it had a shelf life of only a few days in conventional PET.

The initial launch of Hokkai Can’s high barrier ACTIS bottle in 2000 changed that and presented the brand owner with a high performance barrier enhanced coated PET bottle.

The following year Japan implemented its Package Recycling Law PET regulations, one of which is to forbid the use of tinted or coloured PET bottles entering the market, as an incentive to encourage recycling.

Since the ACTIS process uses a micro thin amorphous carbon layer to enhance the barrier property but it gives the bottle a slight brownish tint, this was considered unacceptable under the new law. 

However, according to Shunzo Miyazaki San, Director of Hokkai Can’s R&D Centre, the company’s response was the development of ACTIS Lite. This involved a reduction of up to one third of the original carbon layer, and a much reduced colour cast bringing it within the permissible legal level.

Hokkai now has nine Sidel ACTIS-20 machines at its two plants, including three lines dedicated only to ACTIS Lite - which run at a constant 12,000 bottles per hour, approximately 20 percent higher than the standard ACTIS machines, and more than 350 million coated bottles have been shipped todate.

In order to create the high barrier, the bottle is blown in the conventional way, using SIDEL equipment. However after a PET bottle is evacuated, acetylene gas is injected into the cavity and treated with a microwave. This converts the gas to a plasma, which  coats the interior of the bottle with a carbon film of less than 400 angstroms.

This gives the enhanced barrier property, an increase of 10 to 20 times that of an uncoated standard PET bottle.

The legislators and the Japanese market have now accepted co-active coatings, however it is still restricted to hot vending applications, even with new converters entering the market Hokkai currently holds an estimated 55 percent share of the coated PET market.

Hokkai has been active in the development of new markets; Hokkai’s subsidiary filling company Nihon Canpack, is responding to this changing focus by expanding the market for smaller pack formats, 0.28 and 0.35 ml with additional functions like co-active coating to respond to the need for asceptic and hot-fill capability.

The slight colour cast is acceptable in the non carbonated market, particularly for tea and coffee, where the appearance may be enhanced.