Bericap GmbH & Co. in Budenheim/Germany, a global player, producing plastic caps and closures offers to the market the new DoubleSeal Eco refillable, which is especially apt for taste sensitive products. Selters has opted for the innovative closure from 2006 on after testing its application and sensory effects for several months in cooperation with Selters Mineralquelle Augusta Victoria GmbH. The closure will be applied on refillable bottles of the brands „Selters Mineralwasser“ and „Selters Leicht“.

Bericap and Selters Mineralquelle have been in contact for some time in order to achieve product improvements of packaging material via an enhanced information exchange. The focus while developing this innovative closure was on the sensory effect, since plastic 2-piece caps and closures with liners contain slip agents that may have a negative effect on the taste of the mineral water.

With this innovative product Bericap has broken with an old taboo and has tried successfully to apply 1-piece closures on refillable bottles with slightly damaged neck finishes avoiding the use of liners. The basis of this new development is our DoubleSeal closure, which has been successfully introduced to the market a few years ago. The DoubleSeal seals neck finishes tightly with its inner and outer sealing lips. This special feature ensures that products remain excellently fresh even if highly carbonated and under extreme climatic conditions over a longer period.

Taking into consideration the experience with the well proven product DoubleSeal standard; Bericap modified the closure in order to be applicable even for neck finishes that had to undergo multiple influences in several product cycles. With the implementation of a new slitting technology, that grants continuously consumer friendly opening torques, a new tamper evidence band for refillable bottles was developed that can be regarded as the main feature of this packaging innovation. Test results with the very first samples without any slip agent, were so promising that the development engineers at Bericap were encouraged to further develop their product.

„The business transaction with Selters confirms the importance of working closely together with our partners from the beverage industry“, states Thomas Henkel, Sales director Beverage closures at Bericap, praising the successful cooperation. Ingo Vialon, Managing director of Selters Mineralquelle, claims the cooperation to be a complete success: „As a supplier of a Premium-Mineral water we feel committed to fulfil our customers’ highest demands on product quality employing innovative technology. However, this is only possible if we can cooperate neatly with our suppliers in questions concerning research and development”, says Vialon.