March 16/Knoxville, Tenn./News Sentinel -- PepsiCo has introduced a bottle made entirely out of materials from plants, and it says it is ahead of Coca-Cola in the green bottle wars.

The bottle is made from materials including switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. Eventually, orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its Frito-Lay and Quaker food businesses will go into the mix. Pepsi says the bottle looks and feels like its current bottles, and protects the beverage as well. Current bottles are made from plastics created out of petroleum products. The new bottles cost about the same as current bottles, the company notes.

Coke produces a bottle that is nearly a third from plant-based materials. It has said it would be several years before it would have a 100% plant bottle ready to sell. Pepsi says it will test the new bottle next year, starting with a few hundred thousand bottles.

From the March 17, 2011, Prepared Foods' Daily News
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