(28 June 2006 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Beverage conglomerate Coca-Cola(CCE), which is partnering football's governing body Fifa, has announced a new product to coincide with the ongoing World Cup.

To celebrate the 2006 World Cup in Germany, CCE in the UK have produced a Pet Coke bottle - in the shape of a football.

Coca Cola says that it has a long history of celebrating the World Cup with special edition bottles, usually featuring special decoration, labels, caps, etc.

The 250 ml bottle is available in both Regular and Diet Coke. It come with supporting promotional display material. As part of the campaign, Graphic Packaging International was asked to take on the challenge of automatically packing a 2x2 multipack wrap of these primary containers at line speed.

This was achieved using a Marksman1400 wrap machine recently installed at CCE's Sidcup plant. The machine will also run the new 25cl mini Contour bottle and a new, shaped Fanta Splash bottle in 2x2, 2x3 and 2x4 configurations.The firm says that the ability to run such a range of different and unusually shaped primary containers, together with wraps incorporating innovative and unusual design features is an illustration of the versatility of the Marksman 1400.

Graphic Packaging International provides paperboard packaging solutions to the beverage, food and other consumer product
industries.