05 | 2008
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Bottle Applications<br />
Pure, Light,<br />
Mountain Water<br />
– Bottled in Ingeo <br />
Italian mineral water company Fonti di Vinadio Spa,<br />
which bottles and sells Sant’Anna di Vinadio mineral<br />
water is located in the North-Italian Piedmont area.<br />
Just recently they introduced their water in Ingeo PLA<br />
bottles. bioplastics MAGAZINE spoke to Alberto Bertone,<br />
owner and Chairman of the company (assisted by Ingeo<br />
European press office - Global Business Solutions)<br />
bM: Mr. Bertone, can you tell us something about your<br />
company and its history?<br />
AB: Well, I founded the company Fonti di Vinadio Spa in<br />
1996. The company ethos is based on a deep conviction<br />
of the high potential for the water which flows from the<br />
mountains towering over Vinadio, in the heart of the<br />
Maritime Alps. The high quality of the Vinadio water has<br />
been known since the 16th century. Today, Sant’Anna<br />
water is the market leader in Italy with a turnover of about<br />
150 million Euro and an output of 650 million bottles in<br />
2007.<br />
bM: Before you started filling your water in PLA bottles,<br />
did you use PET or glass or even other packaging?<br />
AB: From the very beginning, Sant’Anna has been<br />
available in PET. We never used glass or cans or carton.<br />
bM: What did you do before?<br />
Where appropriate Fonti di Vinadio use<br />
wood for many of the logistic plant parts<br />
AB: When we entered the market about 10 years ago,<br />
we always focused on our Sant’Anna brand, optimizing our<br />
business also with co-packaging activities. Currently the<br />
business is 98% represented by Sant’Anna brand sales.<br />
From the beginning, environmental activities have always<br />
been part of our focus.<br />
bM: Why did you start this PLA-bottle activity?<br />
AB: I decided to experiment bottling the mineral water<br />
with an innovative material derived totally from a raw<br />
vegetal material about one year ago. I imported the Ingeo<br />
bioplastic bottle preforms directly from the USA. And so<br />
with the policy of our company focused very much on the<br />
environmental aspects of this project, we can calculate that<br />
if 50 million of our new bioplastic bottles each weighing 27<br />
grams replace the same quantity of PET bottles, we will<br />
save 13,600 barrels of crude oil, or the same amount of<br />
energy it takes to supply electricity to 40,000 people for an<br />
entire month.<br />
12 bioplastics MAGAZINE [<strong>05</strong>/08] Vol. 3
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