When using glass, Coke bottles had a recognizable shape. So, how to bring that shape to plastic? This is something inventors began working on in the 80’s, reports Packaging Digest.
Coca-Cola Co.’s contour bottle, introduced in 1916, is perhaps the best-known packaging design in American history, but when the soft-drink maker switched to plastic, it was confined to the same straight-sided bottle as everyone else.
That is, until Tom Brady and his team figured out a way to duplicate in plastic what had been possible only in glass. The team started work on the project in the late 1980s.
“Our company was the one that sort of solved that problem for Coca-Cola,” he said. “Even today, the Coca-Cola bottles have a remnant of that trademark shape in them.”
For that and many other innovations and accomplishments, the Holland resident was recognized in Orlando, FL., with induction into the Plastics Hall of Fame.
Photo by Kevin