Expanding shrinksleeves

In 2003, the European shrink sleeve market was estimated to be worth €945M and made up of 140 brand owners using sleeves for around 150 products. However, with year on growth subsequently estimated to be running at around 10%, sleeving clearly has considerable potential for rapid development into a significant added-value packaging market.

The concept has been around for some 30 years or so, but the real impetus for application can be traced more recently to the alcho-pop trend in the mid 90s. Indeed, the drinks sector still remains the prime target for 360º full-body top to toe application but is now being closely followed by dairy products, cosmetics, household goods and automotive ancillaries.

By 2007 over 12,000M units – of which well in excess of two-thirds will be plastics constructed predominantly out of PVC and PET – are anticipated to carry shrinksleeve outers. Any product with a distinctive or unusual body shape in search of differentiation or on-shelf impact is fair game.

This is organic growth rather than market share through replacement, says Alcan shrinksleeves business manager David Humes. "Personally, I don't think the sleeve will ever replace the label, which will always be the lower cost option as long as there are straight-sided containers. The biggest market for shrinksleeves is obviously promotion and product differentiation. If you look at some of the more added value products on the shelves, the manufacturer has stayed with shrinksleeves because the brand has become synonymous with a container shape unsuited to a normal wraparound label. The driver is always visible differentiation. We have carried out trials with some amazing pack shapes for products that you wouldn't normally associate with shrinksleeves."

Alcan's Cumbrian site is currently achieving 100% year on year growth, says Humes, with customers increasingly looking for a one-stop shop solution taking in both PET bottles and sleeves from the same source. The company has recently completed a project for Tyne & Wear-based Villa Soft Drinks for 2M 250ml PET bottles and sleeves for the Wild Water flavoured drink products, Funky Monkey and Happy Hippo. Alcan says this was existing business secured from a competitor due to the group's capability to both bottle and sleeve.

According to French-based Sleever International md Eric Fresnel, the emergence of the shrink-sleeve as a marketing tool has been inextricably linked with the increasing adoption of PET bottles within the drinks sector, aided by the capability of sleeving machinery to attain production rates of 250 units/min.

"People were looking for a way to improve upon the general appearance of bottles in terms of both shape and graphics," notes Fresnel. "That suggests the emergence of a consumer who was more sensitive to shape, colour and design than necessarily to content. We are now in a period of one to one marketing. People want to buy a product that seems to fit the mood of the moment.

"Look at the mixer drinks business. The packaging is almost more important than the product. Consumers are looking for a stylish bottle. People want to be trendy. The look is the thing. The technology was there. The cost-efficiencies were there to support the sleeve versus other techniques. The market maturity was there because the mixed drink was the trend."

While club chic dispensed by the bottle may be approaching its sell-by date, the trend that sparked it has passed seamlessly into the potentially higher volume dairy products sector. Sleever's latest system for the dairy industry, PowerSleeve Evolution, can operate on hot and cold, plastic or glass bottles and runs at 80,000 units/hr.

"Dairy producers have basically never had any money to spend on packaging because at the end of the day they were after all only selling milk," says Fresnel, "but that's now changed. There is a move away from soft drinks and towards healthier alternative probiotics such as Danone Actimel and milk flavoured drinks directly appealing to the younger consumer. These are products that require more than just a label to successfully market. It is all about bottle shape and design and the sleeve has become an integral part of the proposition.

"Now we are extending from drinkable yoghurt to the yoghurt itself – from bottles to pots but with the same concept - shape, design, image and shiny aspect."

Fresnel maintains that the association between the shrinksleeve and PET is critical, not just in enhancing on-shelf appearance but also in terms of environmental considerations. "In Japan, all PET bottles are required to be clear. It's the sleeve that is coloured. This enables them to recycle every PET bottle by just stripping off the sleeve – in effect the bottle's outer skin. Keeping the bottle price constant and investing the promotional budget in the sleeve to create both a technical and the marketing advantage is the most cost-effective solution."

Sleeving specialist Viscose Closures has recently co-operated with Merck Speciality Chemicals and the WCB design consultancy to develop a striking 360º full-body image for the "Well and Wild" range of health and recreational drinks.

Having initially felt that each of the six individual 250ml drinks – ranging from the oriental influenced Gyokuro in the "Well" selection to "Wild" variants such as Ignition and Fizzbomb – would require its own distinctive bottle shape to reflect the contents, differentiated sleeving proved to provide the optimum positioning and most cost-effective solution.

According to Ralph Mayer of Viscose Closures: "The result was a series of six label design concepts which were not only stunning in themselves but which used all the benefits of the various materials and processes to their limits."

Hitherto, the principal drivers to shrink-sleeve adoption have been wholly marketing-oriented and aimed at supporting brand recognition and positioning. Gravure is the predominant printing process, although rapidly improving quality standards are anticipated to grow flexo's share to around 28% by 2007. Given the overall trend towards shorter runs and the brand owner's increasing requirement to be instantly responsive to market fluctuations, digital too will have a role to play in future sleeving applications.

Furthermore, the next generation of shrink-sleeves will reflect far more of a futuristic capability, predicts Sleever's Eric Fresnel. "We have built electro-magnetic protection devices into some sleeves to guard against theft and to aid traceability. The current sleeve has proved itself to be a good example of reliable technology. The next step is intelligent sleeving within which there will be more smart devices and we already have UV barrier sleeves to extend shelf-life."

In the meantime, Klöckner Pentaplast is just one of a number of substrate producers focusing attention upon improving degrees of shrinkage and has recently developed a super high shrink PVC grade where 72% can be achieved. In PET film it also claims to be the first to offer shrinkages as high as 75%.

Improvements in machinery capabilities are also very much part of sleeving's onward development. "People are looking for higher speeds depending, of course, on the work rate of the installed filling machines," notes Graham Engineering UK sales manager Will Crossley. "Although in reality we're basically still doing what we did two years ago, we're continually upgrading the technology. It's just that we're now doing it faster and more efficiently – for example, handling shorter lines."

According to Krones AG, speed is not always the main requirement. The German-based drinks industry specialist has recently expanded its range of labellers to include the Sleevematic DS (Direct Sleeving) and the Sleevematic DS Inline to assist brand owners looking to extend beyond the no-label-look.

An expanding mandrel opens the sleeve, to ensure more accurate cutting. A vacuum device for opening the sleeve is therefore not required, nor is an additional transfer station. In the cutting unit, the sleeve is cut accurately to the selected length by several servo-controlled blades, but not until it has already been fitted. After the sleeve has been transferred to the bottle, it is shrink-fitted in a steam tunnel.