ISBT and Cetie recently announced a formal agreement of a novel collaborative approach to jointly develop and distribute global beverage industry voluntary guidelines. Significantly, this agreement allows both organizations to utilize a new shared platform to create guidelines and document best practices within their respective memberships in Europe and North America. The result will be a unified guideline that can be used by global brands and their suppliers while creating, producing, and packaging their products.
Both organizations often address the same topics in the beverage industry. ISBT and Cetie will now combine efforts and co-produce harmonized guidelines, nomenclatures, specifications, or test methods that provide consistency across the global beverage industry.
"Now anyone in the global beverage industry wishing to adopt the best of industry practice can access guidelines from both ISBT and Cetie," says Larry Hobbs, ISBT Executive Director Emeritus about this agreement. "Gone are the days of silos by regional area, and the various regionalization of protocols, which added cost and confusion at brand and supply side companies."
As a secondary benefit, most common problems are global, not regional. "Now solutions can be quickly adopted for the largest consumer markets," says Josquin Peyceré, Secretary General of Cetie. "Consumers today are concerned about the safety and security of all food products. This agreement will leverage the best in beverage industry technical knowledge in responding to development of new beverages, processes, and packaging."
As part of this agreement, both organizations launched their first jointly produced guideline in 2019. A significantly updated Plastic Bottle Closure Qualification Test Manual is available to the public from the ISBT Guidelines, Best Practices, and White Papers page. The manual will allow brands and suppliers to reduce qualification costs and prove out new lightweight closure designs. This is a win — both economically and for improved sustainability — for the global beverage industry. The industry can expect more collaborative efforts soon.
