Food Packaging: Great size, less metal

By moving the countersink inward, design engineers were able to reduce the diameter of standard 202 can ends, resulting in material savings and greater structural integrity.

An engineered solution to source reduction for beverage packagers recently marked an early milestone. Crown Cork & Seal shipped the 10 billionth 202 SuperEnd, a can end that uses 10 percent less metal than standard 202 ends while increasing the structural integrity of the can.

SuperEnd debuted on Pepsi containers last year. Post-packaging pasteurization makes beer a more demanding application, and Labatt Interbrew North America became the first brewery to use SuperEnd when it converted packaging lines at six North American plants. More than 70 filling lines worldwide now are applying the ends.

End diameters for soft drinks and beer have steadily shrunk over the years, but each reduction entailed significant costs to retool fillers to handle the smaller size. Seamer wear parts such as chucks, rolls, knockout pads and cap pushers have to be replaced for SuperEnd, but the same high-cone machines that handle 202 ends can handle them. Each of Labatt’s five Canadian and one U.S. plant managed the SuperEnd conversion in one weekend.

“We use a lighter gauge aluminum with SuperEnd, but the geometry achieved by moving in the countersink is where the real material savings occurs,” explains Neill Mitchell, CC&S’s marketing director. Interior pressure causes the panel to curve, making the pull tab easier to grasp, and 14 percent less pull force is required, he says.