Gatorade, the ubiquitous, brightly hued sports drink, is bottled the world over. But the Gatorade bottled in Mountain Top now comes in bottles made right at the plant, bringing 35 new jobs to Luzerne County. Amcor, the global packaging giant, opened its new bottle manufacturing facility at the plant last month, capable of producing 650 million bottles a year.
The new facility makes hot fillable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles at the plant, a technology that Amcor claims to have pioneered. Previously, Mountain Top Gatorade purchased its hot-fill PET containers.
Larry Weber, vice president and general manager of Amcor Rigid Plastics' North American Beverage Group, says that on-site bottle manufacturing is a highly efficient and sustainable business model. Beverage makers like PepsiCo, which owns Gatorade, “can gain major sustainability benefits and eliminate expenses associated with shipping, including unnecessary handling, secondary packaging and freight costs,” he says.
Amcor, which has seven similar hot fill facilities at beverage filling plans throughout the country, received about $100,000 in state and local grants for site development and employee training at Mountain Top, Amcor says.
Source: Shelley Steele, Amcor
Writer: Elise Vider