April 22, 2025 – A new packaging trend is quietly emerging in the food and beverage manufacturing industry, with label-free bottles gaining significant popularity. Portuguese company Carvalhelhos, which adheres to the concepts of sustainable development and environmental responsibility, has successfully created new PET and recycled PET (rPET) containers without plastic labels, leveraging SMI’s EBS 8 KL ERGON stretch blow molding machine. This achievement offers a fresh perspective for the industry’s green transformation.
The customized solution provided by SMI for Carvalhelhos stands out with its unique features. Carvalhelhos’ blow molding machines are not only capable of producing traditional PET and rPET bottles that require labeling but are also equipped with special molds designed by SMIMEC. These molds are used to stretch blow mold 0.33-liter, 0.5-liter, and 1.5-liter flat-bottom rPET bottles, which eliminate the need for paper or plastic labels. This innovative design does away with glue and additional paper or plastic materials, greatly streamlining the recycling process and ensuring a high purity of recycled PET. Moreover, by removing the label area and common rib structures on traditional bottles and combining embossing and debossing on the bottle body, it provides extra space for brand logos and essential product information that traditionally appeared on labels. It also allows for the inclusion of braille information, achieving both aesthetic appeal and practicality. According to AsiaMB, this design has attracted widespread attention in the market.
The label-free bottle design offers remarkable advantages across multiple aspects. From an environmental and consumer perspective, it is a powerful eco-friendly tool: 100% recyclable PET bottles meet strict environmental regulations; the simplified recycling process eliminates the cumbersome step of separating labels from traditional bottles; and the label application process without glue reduces packaging waste and the material pressure of recycling. For bottlers, label-free bottles are equally appealing: they not only cut down on the procurement costs of labels and glue but also reduce raw material storage costs. Additionally, the production process is optimized as labelers are no longer required, significantly improving the efficiency of PET recycling.