Why is the bottom of a beverage bottle designed to look like a flower? Is it for beauty or to hold less?

Expert of this article: Li Yilan, PhD in Chemistry, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Have careful friends noticed when drinking beverages that the bottom of many beverage bottles is shaped like a five-petal flower?

Why is the bottom of a beverage bottle designed to be a flower instead of flat? Is it to save costs? Or is it for aesthetics? What secrets are hidden in the five-petal flower bottom design? Are you curious? Let's take a look at what's going on.

Why does the bottom of the beverage bottle have a five-petal raised shape?

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Some people think that the raised shape of the five-petal flower is designed by the business to save design costs and pack less beverages. Is it really an attempt to deceive consumers visually?

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The answer is no.

First of all, the outer packaging of each bottle of beverage has a clear capacity value marked on it, and merchants must strictly follow the national standards when filling beverages to ensure that the capacity is within a certain error range of the marked capacity.

Secondly, the area required for the outer packaging of the five-petal raised shape is larger than the material required for the flat-bottom design.

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Others believe that this design is intended to increase the beauty of the beverage packaging and increase product sales.

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But this was not the original design intention.

The real reason

The bottle bottom design with the raised five-petal flower shape is mostly used to contain carbonated beverages. The shaking of carbonated beverages during transportation will promote the decomposition of carbonic acid and produce a large number of bubbles containing carbon dioxide.

This will cause the volume of beverage gas to increase, thereby generating high pressure, posing the risk of bottle damage and explosion. This design can effectively disperse the pressure and avoid the risk of bottle explosion.

In addition, mineral water is another beverage that uses the five-petal vase bottom design because this design can increase the stability of the bottle when placed vertically. Therefore, on a shelf with many products, this bottle has a greater grip on the shelf and can avoid being hit by other products and collapsing.

What secrets are hidden in the convex shape of the five-petal flower?

The outer packaging materials of beverages are mainly plastic, glass, metal and paper.

Plastic packaging

It is usually made by adding modifiers to polymer materials, among which the polymers are mainly polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyester (polyethylene terephthalate) PET.

Polyethylene (PE) material: poor heat resistance, easy to deform when heated, avoid using at high temperatures.

Food-grade polypropylene (PP) material: It is heat-resistant and can remain unchanged when used at over 130°C for more than 30 minutes. It can be used for multiple high-temperature heating in microwave ovens or other containers.

PET material: The bottom packaging design of carbonated beverages based on PET material is mostly five-petal flowers. This is because the decomposition of carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages will produce a large amount of carbon dioxide gas, which will generate pressure inside the sealed bottle. However, due to the low hardness of PET material, the bottom is designed to be an uneven five-petal flower structure to evenly disperse the pressure inside the bottle, thereby eliminating the risk of "explosion" caused by the bottle's alternating hot and cold and the severe vibration during transportation.

Glass Container

It is non-toxic, odorless, colorless and transparent. It can be sterilized at high temperature and reused repeatedly, saving the cost of using outer packaging. It is usually used to pack soy milk, beer, etc.

Metal packaging

It has been used since the 1980s. Aluminum alloy plates are widely used because of their good sealing and ductility, not easy to break, and can prolong the shelf life of beverages. However, since metal materials are not tolerant to acid and alkali, when the acidity and alkalinity of the beverage are too high, the packaging material will be corroded.

What other common bottle bottom designs are there in life?

Cylindrical metal packaging bottle with recessed dished bottom

Two-piece cylindrical aluminum cans occupy a large share of the market due to their good sealing properties and simple production, and are often used to hold carbonated beverages.

Flat bottom cylindrical or rectangular paper packaging bottle

The one-piece carbonated beverage packaging made of paper materials has not yet been widely promoted in the market, but the new technology used has achieved an one-piece paper packaging that is not easy to tear, has plasticity and good toughness.

In the future, it is very likely that paper flat-bottom cylindrical or rectangular bottles will replace plastic packaging and enter the market on a large scale.

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