Dive Brief:
- O-I Glass’ individual beverage container innovation, the Drinktainer, soon will be available for consumer use via a partnership with F.X. Matt Brewing Co. This is the company’s first such agreement for Drinktainer and accelerates speed to market.
- F.X. Matt is installing a customized bottle fill line dedicated to Drinktainer and will offer contract packaging services to brands that want to use it. The line is expected to begin operating early next year.
- Drinktainer features a 42mm, wide-mouth top and a rip-top metal cap, and it’s designed to optimize beverage aroma, flavor and flow. The container also retains pressure, making it ideal for carbonated beverages.
Dive Insight:
Drinktainer is an example of how sometimes companies retool the way they seek customers or market an innovation if the product doesn’t get traction after launch. Sarah Brennan, North America marketing and new product development director for O-I, said the company actually introduced Drinktainer to the market about two years ago, but a major hurdle prevented uptake: Customers found it was too expensive to add a new bottle fill line that could handle this design.
“Especially with something that is a totally brand new concept, it can be a lot of upfront investment before you have a fully vetted out product tested into the marketplace,” she said. “So we saw this as an opportunity that we needed to go out into the market and create an avenue for customers to actually be able to utilize our package.”
F.X. Matt stepped in to eliminate some of the upfront investment barriers, Brennan said. The parent company of beer brands such as Saranac will provide co-packing for brands unable or unwilling to make the initial bottle filling equipment investment, especially at small beverage operations.
During the pandemic, O-I also marketed Drinktainer to taprooms as a to-go option for drinks and as a single-serve alternative to growlers and crowlers.
O-I designed the Drinktainer with alcoholic beverages in mind because that’s one of the primary categories it serves, Brennan said, but the container is appropriate for nearly any beverage. Yet, it is optimized to hold pressure-sensitive beverages, like beer or other carbonated fluids, compared with still fluids like juice and coffee drinks. From sparkling waters to hard seltzers, carbonated drinks are “very popular right now,” Brennan said. “It was really fundamental to us that we created something that had that aspect.”
Designers kept the consumer experience at the forefront during the development process, Brennan explained. That included not only maintaining the beverage aroma and mouthfeel, but also container aesthetics. Drinktainer’s wide mouth mimics household glassware and is “table worthy — something you’d feel proud to set out on your table,” she said. “If you get a product in a can, you don’t always want to set it out. It’s not as elegant.”
F.X. Matt President and CEO Fred Matt supported that concept in a recent news release about the new partnership in mentioning the desire to build Drinktainer into a premium, “must-have” beverage container.
O-I Glass will manufacture the Drinktainer units at two of its facilities. It will initially launch two stock designs, straight wall and snifter, with the potential to expand the product line in the future. The bottles are recyclable and also contain recycled content, Brennan confirmed.
Last month, O-I Glass released its 2022 sustainability report, touting innovation initiatives such as lightweighting and novel processing and production technologies. It aims to further increase its use of recycled content in new products and holds a patent for a bottle made from 100% cullet that it has produced in Europe.