Coca-Cola has released its Heritage Collection and Heinz Tomato Ketchup is temporarily back in its famous octagonal glass bottle.
While most people think that Coca-Cola’s iconic Contour bottle was the original packaging choice for the world famous soft drink, the 125th anniversary Heritage bottled collection reminds us that the brand’s first choice was The Hutchinson, first created in 1899.
The heritage collection also includes the straight-sided bottle that followed The Hutchinson and pre-dates the Contour bottle. Root Glass Company produced a prototype of the first contour bottle in 1915. It was never produced, as it was unstable on conveyor belts. The ‘real thing’ followed a year later and is still in use today.
In 1916, The Coca-Cola Company set a brief to find, ‘A Coca-Cola bottle which a person will recognise as a Coca-Cola bottle even if he feels it in the dark. The Coca-Cola bottle should be shaped that, even if broken, one could tell at a glance what it was.’
Meanwhile, HJ Heinz has reintroduced an American icon with the launch of a new collector’s edition of Heinz Tomato Ketchup, available in classic glass bottles.
While the glass bottles can still be found in thousands of restaurants across the country, they have been absent from store shelves for more than 10 years and are now back for a limited time.
When Heinz Tomato Ketchup was first introduced in 1876, it was bottled in clear glass to reveal its purity. It wasn’t until several years later that the world-famous octagonal bottle debuted. The glass bottle was sold in stores until the 1990s, when it was replaced with the squeezable plastic bottle that was first introduced in 1983.
When these brands launched, glass was pretty much the only packaging choice, so features heavily in retro propositions. But despite the apparent dominance of PET and cans, glass remains a popular choice with consumers.
This is well demonstrated through the release this week of a Europe-wide survey showing that almost three quarters of European consumers recommend glass as a food and drinks packaging material for many reasons, the top of which are taste preservation, health and safety, and environment friendliness.
A hundred or so years from now, today’s designs will be retro. I wonder if Heinz’ use of Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle will stir such fond memories as the brands’ glass classics.
Bill Bruce is group editorial director of FoodBev Media. You can contact him here
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