The Growth Consumption of Carbonates

The Growth Consumption of Carbonates
The growth of carbonates worldwide has been a remarkable phenomenon not only in the USA and western Europe, but also in Mexico, Brazil, eastern Europe, China ad India.

In the USA especially, carbonates have dominated the soft drinks market and the carbonates market has been dominated by cola.

This worldwide growth in carbonates can be attributed in large part to the two major American cola companies and their aggressive international sales and marketing campaign.

In the UK, Europe and Japan, cola accounts for almost half of the total carbonated soft drinks market and in the USA almost 70%.

In USA and UK it is clear that carbonates’ dominance of the soft drinks market has peak and begun to wane in the past few years.

In the UK, carbonates volume reached more than half of the total soft drinks market, peaking around 52% in the mid 1990s.

Three factors were largely responsible for the remarkable growth in popularity of carbonated: marketing, lifestyle and technology.

‘Demand creation’ by the major brands using powerful images on a worldwide scale has been a key factor in exciting public interest.

This has been coupled with a massive increase in availability.

Carbonates are now available at virtually every location; not just in shops and supermarkets, but in cinema, sports centers garages and railway stations and are frequently sold form refrigerated vendors for even better refreshments.

The trend has been also influenced by changing lifestyle and greater convenience.

For example, the ‘easy open end’ on cans had a marked impact on their convenience and hence popularity from their introduction in the 1970s.

The introduction of PET enabled larger sizes of bottles to be manufactured than was possible with glass, that is, 2 and 3 liters and the introduction of ‘multipacks; for cans and bottle has encourage shoppers to purchase larger quantities.

This trend has help by the move to out of-town shopping centers easily accessible by car.

A frequently ignored supply route for carbonates is that of dispensed drinks, that is, where the drink is supplied to the retail outlet in the form of a concentrated syrup, which is diluted with cold carbonated water at the point of serving to the customer by means of a fixed dispensing system.

This type of operation is commonly found in fast food outlets and large bars.

Dispensed carbonates account for 11% of the total UK consumption of carbonates and their growth has been driven by lifestyle changes resulting in a greater proportion of food and drink now being consumed away from home.

The introduction of modern technology has enabled considerable cost savings. This has been achieved by economics of scale by the ‘light-weighting’ of can and bottles (thereby saving raw material), by increased automation, by a reduction in the use of outer packaging and by savings in distribution costs.
The Growth Consumption of Carbonates

Technological Development

Technological Development
Technology certainly played a large part in the growth of soft drinks in the second half of the twentieth century.

The development of cans, plastic bottles high speed packaging lines and improvement to distribution systems have been largely responsible for the increase in availability, the decrease in real term cost and the resultant increase in consumption.

The advent of of railways and large steam ships in the 1800s made transportation feasible and indeed drinks were exported from the UK to the USA as early as 1800.

The export trade continued to expand and by the mid-1800s significant trade was being done with far corners of the Empire.

This must have involved considerable cost and on a domestic basic the trade was on a much more local scale.

The industry evolved as a multitude of local businesses operating in a small geographical area, though some larger companies operated several production plants in different parts of the country.

The UK Bottlers; Year Book 1933 listed more than 2000 soft drink manufacturing companies but by 1983 the list had shrink to less than 400, and the number is now down to less than 100.

Likewise the number of bottling plants in the USA grew to reach a peak of 7920 in 1929, remaining fairly constant until around 1950 and then halved to 3727 by 1965 as improved productivity and distribution started to have a significant effect.

This having of the number of bottling plant took place over a period in which per capita consumption rose by over 60%.

The growth of cans and PET bottles at the expense of returnable glass has played a significant part in this continuing productivity improvement, which has been truly amazing.

As recently as 20 years ago a typical returnable glass bottle line producing, 300 bottles/min, required about 25 operating personnel.

Highly automated PET bottle blowing and filling operations have also improved production efficiencies significantly.

Other factors contributing to improved operational/ distribution efficiencies (both in time and cost) include:

• Use of shrink wrap in place of crates or boxes



• Micro-processor controlled equipment, for example, for palletisation



• Automated syrup room operations



• Centralized computer-controlled warehousing systems



• Automated bar-coding and traceability systems
  

Technological Development

Technology Development of Carbon Dioxide in Softdrinks

Technology Development of Carbon Dioxide in Softdrinks
It had been recognized by many scientists in the early 1700s that the gas produced by brewery fermentation, combustion of wood and addition of acids to chalk/marble was one and the same. The most economical means of commercial production was by action of sulphuric acid on marble chippings or at the later date, on sodium bicarbonate. Crushed marble was cheap and readily available in a large quantity. However, the purity of the marble was critical to the quality of the CO2. Impurities would cause noticeable ‘off flavor’ in the finished drink. This forced manufacturers to introduce filters and scrubbers to remove taints. Bubbling the CO2 though olive oil was a commonly used method of removing organic taints. The purification of CO2 introduced complexity and hence cost to the production process.

Although more expensive than marble, sodium bicarbonate could be obtained in commercial quantities at consistently high purity and was preferred by some manufacturer. The product of action of sulphuric acid on marble is calcium sulphate, which is insoluble in water. Large quantities of the resulting sludge were difficult to dispose off, particularly when the United Kingdom municipal authorities introduced controls in 1890s. Problems of effluent emissions are not new. The liquefaction of CO2 by means of high pressure was reported by Michael Faraday in 1823 and the first practical manufacturing equipment was patented in Holland in 1877.

The commercial manufacture and use of liquid CO2 for the carbonation of drinks began in Germany and in the United Sates of America in the 1889. The production of solid CO2 was discovered in 1835, and a patent for production and use of solid of CO2 was granted in 1897. The handling and transportation of solid block was much easier than for heavy metal cylinders containing liquid CO2. Though use of liquid or solid CO2 increased in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was not until the 1950s that transportation of liquid CO2 by low pressure bulk rood tankers became commonplace.

Production of carbonated drinks was traditionally carried out by means of adding concentrated syrup to the bottle and then topping up with carbonated water. A considerable improvement in speed was achieved on 1937, when the Mojonnier Brothers Corporation of Chicago introduced a continuous blending/cooling/carbonating system.
Technology Development of Carbon Dioxide in Softdrinks