Two minutes less of weekly maintenance per mold: that’s what Sidel has accomplished with Kohlox™, the new, self-lubricating composite material for studs and wear rings.

Less than 19 grams for 0.5 L: Sidel beats the world record for the lightweighting of hot-fillable PET bottles and designs innovative shapes thanks to the development of new technical solutions. Discover the new models Skyward™ and Curvy™.

On October 2 in Brussels (Belgium), the international jury for Pentawards 2009, a worldwide competition dedicated to packaging creativity, recognized the Sidel Packaging Design department for its PET beer bottle.

Sidel is conscious of the environmental challenges faced by the beverage packaging industry and wants to be actively involved in environmental initiatives. For these reasons, Sidel has joined NAPCOR (National Association for PET Container Resources), which is the trade association of the PET plastic industry in the United States and Canada.

For the first time, a dairy company is launching a PET bottle for UHT milk using Sidel’s Predis™ dry decontamination technology. The technology has allowed LSDH (France) to reduce the weight of its bottles by 20 percent as well as making drastic savings in chemicals and waters. Operations just started in summer 2009.

At Drinktec, Sidel is launching the SBO Universal™2 range, which accelerates industrial blow molder outputs by 10% - reaching 2,000 bottles per hour per mold – while also decreasing energy consumption by 10% in the ovens. The result is the possibility of blowing bottles from recycled PET.

To bring its customers up to date on the latest technology developments and efficient line management, Sidel is expanding the training facilities at its North America Zone headquarters in Atlanta. Already home to a Packaging & Tooling Center with a pilot plant, laboratory and classroom facilities, the area provides an additional 4,800 square feet area for hands-on training in life cycle management and equipment demonstration.

With AQ-HC (High Capacity), Sidel is revolutionizing accumulation principles for all production conditions and for high output rates.

A complete new Sidel beer line including filler, crown feeder, crowner, labeller, pasteurizer, accumulation tables and end of line will be running at Drinktec 2009 in Munich. Sidel will demonstrate its latest technology which is characterized by environmental sustainability, great flexibility and optimum cost efficiency in terms of production and layout. Visitors to the world’s most important show for the bottling sector will be able to see Sidel’s beer line in continuous operation at low speed, and peaks of a few minutes of high speed once every hour.

ECO EIT™ and ECO Booster™: Sidel is launching its first ECO Services to respond to bottlers’ and bottle manufacturers’ economic and environmental concerns.

Dry decontamination of preforms and caps, filtration of the blowing and conveying air and aerolic protection of the filling/capping enclosure: Sidel is now adapting these hygiene improvement solutions to the existing configuration of bottling lines and to the production environment.

Since April 2009, the 5,000^th blow molder sold by Sidel has been making PET beer bottles at one of the leaders on the world beer market, Anheuser-Busch InBev. With 5,000 blow molders installed since the 1980s, or about one-half of total machines worldwide, Sidel has beaten all the records.

With a booth of more than 4,000 m2 (approximately 43,000 square feet) at drinktec 2009, the Sidel Group will present state-of-the-art technologies and services, innovative solutions designed to meet customers’ current requirements in terms of cost and productivity and a responsible approach to the environment.

Predis™, Sidel’s patented dry preform decontamination system initially used for beverages distributed in the cold chain, can now also be used for products sold at ambient temperature. Dry technology for aseptic filling of sensitive products promises to be a major break with the past.

By creating the “Engineering & Conveying” business unit, Sidel is forcefully responding to the demand expressed by its customers, who since the start of the global economic crisis, have been focused on the optimization of existing bottling lines, rather than investment in new production capacity.

Coca-Cola Bottling System has benefited from the expertise of Sidel’s worldwide network for the manufacture of approximately 2,000 blow molds for its new On-the-Go bottle. With the 2008 opening of two new Packaging and Tooling Centers (PTC) in Guadalajara (Mexico) and Beijing (China) in 2008, Sidel has enhanced its local service capability and its customer proximity for new packaging development and blow mold manufacture.

Stimulating the sensitive drinks market by making it easier to package products in PET bottles: this is the goal for a new service offered by Sidel. The Group is assisting its customers in choosing the most suitable PET material and package shape for their beverages.