AB InBev creates world’s lightest beer bottle

The world’s largest brewer claims to have made the world’s lightest longneck beer bottle.

AB InBev says it would make CO2 emissions savings equivalent to taking 62,000 cars off the roads annually if used for all its European glass production.

Frederik De Graaf, global director of packaging technology development at AB InBev said: “This new, lighter bottle is an important environmental and technological breakthrough, allowing us to decrease the carbon footprint of the glass bottle.

“This success is the fruit of intensive collaboration with our external glass partners, having shared knowledge and worked together on new glass coatings, new glass mold coatings, and state of the art converting to strengthen the glass.

‘Process improvements’

“When reducing the weight of the bottle, we were faced with strength challenges – beer is, of course, a carbonated drink and inside pressure can build up due to the gas expanding under certain heat conditions.

“We also needed to be mindful of the speed of our filling lines inducing high impact forces on the bottles. Ultimately, a combination of state-of-the-art equipment, skilled operators, and process improvements helped us to achieve this innovation.”

The brewer, which owns brands including Budweiser, Stella Artois, Corona, Beck’s, and Leffe, reduced the weight of its standard longneck beer bottle from 180 to 150 grams, a CO2 emission cut of 17% per bottle.

It is  is now exploring the rollout of the bottle in Europe initially, in one-way bottles.

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