Coca-Cola Knetzgau is first site in Germany to fill new type of refillable glass bottle

Coca-Cola European Partners Germany (CCEP DE) is introducing a new returnable glass container for Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and other beverages starting in May. The pilot site throughout Germany is the plant in Knetzgau, where the new refillable glass bottles in the 0.4-liter size with twist-off caps rolled off the production line for the first time in recent days. A production line was specially converted and expanded. For the launch, Coca-Cola is investing around 5 million euros in production equipment, bottles and crates.

More than 40 years of expertise in refillable bottling
"We have been filling beverages in refillable bottles for more than 40 years and have thus developed a great deal of refillable expertise," says Volker Wielsch, plant manager at Coca-Cola in Knetzgau. "I'm very proud that our plant has been chosen as the first bottling site for the new refillable glass bottle among the 16 production sites in Germany." For the launch, the 0.4-liter container will be produced here once a month over several days. In the first few days, there were around 1 million bottles.

Quality for on the go: handy glass bottle with screw cap
The decision to make the investment was based on market analyses: around 40 percent of people in Germany buy non-alcoholic soft drinks at least once a week when they are out and about.* In addition, more consumers are attaching importance to the special quality of a glass bottle - outside their own four walls and at home. The new, handy reusable bottle with screw cap ensures that they don't have to do without it when they're on the go. The container will be available primarily in kiosks, late-night shops, bakeries, butcher shops and snack bars.

Months of planning leading up to the first bottling for the market
Project manager Stephanie Labonté spent more than seven months preparing the plant in Knetzgau for filling the new refillable glass bottle. The conversion of the existing refillable glass line in particular required time - and detailed planning: "We had to train almost every single machine for the new bottle size - from the sorter, where the empties arrive, to the packer, which lifts the finished beverages into the crate," explains Labonté. The only exception is that the 360-degree bottle check is a self-learning system. With each fully automatically inspected 0.4-liter bottle, it detects any defects that occur even better. This ensures that only flawless bottles end up in the beverage crates.

Labonté and her project team also had to install new machines in the glass filling line for the special twist-off cap on the 0.4-liter bottle. The capper, for example, which was freshly installed last year, forms the returnable caps directly on the bottle - a technology that the plant had not used before and which employees therefore first had to get to know: "We deliberately involved the individual shifts in the project at an early stage. This allowed them to become familiar with the machines while they were still being installed," says Labonté.

Wide variety of refillable bottles
At the Knetzgau plant, the refillable glass line can now sort, wash, fill, and inspect even more bottle sizes: 0.2-liter, 0.33-liter, 0.4-liter, and 0.5-liter glass bottles. Right next door, beverages are produced in 1-liter PET bottles on a second refillable production line. A total of up to 80,000 refillable bottles are produced per hour on both lines, mainly supplying Upper and Lower Franconia and other parts of Southern Germany. The plant in Knetzgau fills around 15 carbonated beverages such as Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite on five production lines in disposable and refillable packaging.