SIG Combibloc presents the bottle made of cardboard
With combidome, SIG Combibloc now presents the bottle made of cardboard. An innovation in packaging, combidome combines the best features of a carton pack with the best features of a bottle. combidome looks like a bottle, and thanks to its shape, stability and smooth pouring action, it is also just as easy to handle.
combidome offers all the proven and unrivalled benefits of a carton pack in terms of product
protection, environmental and economic considerations. The entire carton pack – from the
base to the dome that gives it its distinctive bottle shape and its name – is manufactured
from a paperboard composite.Markus Boehm, Chief Market Officer (CMO) at SIG Combibloc:– With combidome, we havecreated a carton pack that offers a new dimension in differentiation and convenience, and brings with it all the proven environmental benefits of the beverage carton.The slim, sturdy combidome carton sits very comfortably in the hand.The carton packconsists of two sections: a carton body, which is composed from the base to the dome of paperboard composite, and the screw cap domeTwist. Inside the combidome fillingmachine, the two components are assembled into the finished carton pack, aseptically filledand securely sealed.The handy single-action domeTwist screw cap is positioned in thecentre of the package’s top, and is easy to open. At 28 mm, the inner diameter of the closure is particularly large, ensuring smooth pouring and enabling consumers to drinkconveniently straight from the carton pack.In an initial stage, combidome is designed as a packaging solution for non-carbonated softdrinks. The protective composite structure of the combidome carton is composed primarilyof raw paperboard and polymers. At around 75 per cent, paperboard is the main ingredientof this composite structure, and gives the carton stability. The inner polymer layers form a liquid barrier for the beverage; the outer layer keeps moisture out. Added to this is a thin aluminium layer, which protects the product from light, oxygen and external odours. This means nutrients and vitamins in the aseptically filled beverages are retained for a long time, with absolutely no preservatives – and as long as the carton pack is left unopened, there isno need for refrigeration either.Made for communicationCustomers receive the packaging material for combidome in the usual way as finished, flatcarton sleeves. The sleeves are pre-printed with the customer’s ordered design andprecisely marked with fold lines, which will later give the carton pack its characteristiccombidome shape. The carton blanks have already been sealed into sleeves.Markus Boehm:– All four display surfaces and the distinctive carton dome, are fully printable and thus available for use to enhance the carton design. This means combidome differs markedly from conventional beverage bottles, whose design possibilities are mostly limited to narrow labels or banderoles. The scope this offers makes it possible for manufacturers to communicate information and to attract consumers’ attention to the product – the design on the printed surface becomes the perfect complement to the unusual shape. The paperboard for the combidome carton packs is printed with up to six colours using thegravure printing system. This print technique guarantees extremely high-quality printimages.Just upside down: the filling processThe combidome filling machine, capable of filling 12,000 carton packs per hour, is based onthe dependable, robust filling machine technology from SIG Combibloc, which proves its worth a billion times over, year after year. And with combidome, a carton pack has appeared on the market that really sets itself apart from all other beverage packagingsolutions.First, the domeTwist closures are transferred via an air conveyor into the four-track mandrelwheel area of the filling machine, and each one is placed on a separate mandrel. Thecombidome carton sleeves, each already sealed along the longitudinal seam, are transferred from the magazine to the mandrel wheel. One sleeve is placed on eachmandrel.Next, the top edge of the carton sleeve is activated by hot air and then firmly welded to the base plate of the closure, which has also been pre-heated. In the next step, the flaps of the dome are sealed to the carton, which is now open only at what will later form the base of the carton pack. The carton packs leave the mandrel wheelarea upside down and move into the filling machine’s aseptic zone.There the beverages, which have already been sterilised in UHT units, are filled into the open, sterilised cartonpacks in four stages. In this step, the filling nozzles are angled diagonally into the corners ofthe carton packs. This keeps foaming of the beverage to a minimum, creating a very lowoxygenfilling process, which is beneficial for product quality. The carton base is thenultrasonically sealed.The carton pack is now firmly sealed, and the product is securelyprotected. In the next step, the flaps are pre-heated by hot air and sealed to the base. The carton packs are then turned the right way up and ejected from the filling machine .Downstream, the aseptically filled combidome carton packs are given the secondarypackaging requested by the customer.Markus Boehm:– combidome is totally unlike anything that was ever seen on a supermarketshelf. It combines the best features of a carton pack with the best features of a bottle –offering benefits for manufacturers, retailers and consumers alike.