And yet, in the United States at least, it is still mostly relegated to specific niches: children’s juice drinks, for instance, or coconut water.

But could that be about to change?

Drink carton manufacturers increasingly think so. They say the future looks particularly exciting in the world’s biggest drink market for the box as new types of drinks dress themselves up in it.

“What I see so far in the US market is that the carton packaging is still a package that is more or less in the beverage segment tied to being a juice box for kids,” observes SIG Combibloc’s Tim Kirchen, key account manager and marketing manager for the US. “And that’s something that will be changed and needs to be changed.”

Kirchen says SIG is currently working on bringing to the US market an innovation it introduced this past fall called drinksplus. Through this process, it is now possible to aseptically fill drink boxes containing ambient milk and juice-based products comprised of up to 10 percent particulates, such as individual bits of fruit, cereal grains or vegetables up to 6 millimeters in length and diameter, using standard SIG Combibloc filling machines.

“What is special about that,” says Kirchen, “is that usually aseptic processed juice or dairy doesn’t come with particles. So we have developed a product range and also modified our fillers so that they are able to process, produce and fill products with particles.”

Kirchen says similar processes were introduced in China about two years ago, where SIG helped two of its customers develop a particulate drink mixed with cocoa pieces, strawberry, aloe vera and other ingredients.

“So you could see product applications like a chocolate drink with cocoa nut flakes or a juice drink with pineapple or peach pieces,” he says. “Or in the future you can see a milk drink with chocolate pieces.”

The sleeve system from SIG Combibloc is what makes drinksplus possible, according to the company. The packaging sleeves produced at SIG Combibloc’s production plants are individually shaped, sterilized and filled on filling machines from SIG Combibloc at the premises of the dairy or fruit juice producer. After filling, the carton pack is ultrasonically sealed above the filling level and not through the product—preventing fibers or particulates from becoming trapped in the sealed seam. To implement the drinksplus concept, standard SIG Combibloc filling machines for liquid dairy and NCSD products are simply fitted with a new upgrade set. The particulates upgrade equipment includes special valves and filling nozzles developed to provide optimal product flows and tailored to fill innovative drinks containing particulates.

Both SIG Combibloc and Tetra Pak also are working to make their packaging more sustainable. For instance, Tetra Pak says it will introduce aseptic cartons bearing the label of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in China starting this July. The FSC label ensures that the paper Tetra Pak uses for its drink cartons come from responsibly managed forests. “Tetra Pak is committed to sustainable development and is working together with suppliers, customers, consumers and NGOs to create a green chain from the upper stream all the way down to the end user,” says Hudson Lee, president of Tetra Pak China.

Since the introduction of the world’s first FSC-labeled liquid food cartons in the United Kingdom in 2007, Tetra Pak has introduced FSC-labeled cartons in several markets around the globe, with the total number exceeding 2.3
billion in 2009.

Like Kirchin of SIG, Suley Muratoglu, VP of marketing and product management at Tetra Pak, believes the aseptic drink cartons could open up new segments in the US beverage market, especially in the area of ambient dairy.

“Aseptic carton packaging in our belief is going to make it possible for beverage marketers to enter into this market by making the product both affordable and also available in places that it cannot be purchased today,” he says. “There’s a significant growth in functional foods in Europe, but there’s limited growth here in the US and it’s confined to the chilled segment, so that’s one area that we think that the carton packaging will open up a space that could more than double what the category is today.”

And finally, Jorge Izquierdo, vice president of market development for PMMI, says one area where drink boxes are being used more and more is in the wine category.

“The equipment is expensive and in the past it hasn’t been an option for wineries to use, but as this technology is now available for co-packers, the wine industry is taking advantage of that,” he says. “And the reasons for this are interesting.

On the one hand, cost is a big part of the reason, but also it seems that the perception is that it’s more environmentally friendly.”

From Beverage World June 15, 2010