Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest independent Coca-Cola bottler, has invested in a recycling start-up as it moves towards 100% rPET for its plastic bottles.

CuRe Technology was created and is led by a consortium of world-leading recycling innovators and experts led by the Morssinkhof Group and the Cumapol/DuFor Group, with strategic partners DSM-Niaga and NHL Stenden University of Applied Science.

The CCEP funding – via its innovation investment fund, CCEP Ventures – will enable CuRe to accelerate its ‘polyester rejuvenation’ technology from pilot plant to commercial readiness.

once the technology is commercialised, CCEP will receive the majority of the output from a CuRe-licensed, new-build plant.

once operational, CuRe has the potential to support CCEP’s ambition, in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company in Western Europe, to eliminate virgin oil-based PET from its PET bottles within the next decade.

This will contribute to removing of a total of over 200,000 tonnes of virgin oil-based PET from CCEP’s packaging portfolio a year and support the transition to a circular economy for PET packaging.

CuRe will initially apply its end-to-end partial depolymerisation recycling process to transform opaque and difficult to recycle (ODR) food grade PET to high quality recycled PET (rPET) that can be used again for food and drink packaging in one continuous process on the same site.

“Our investment in CuRe underlines our commitment to supporting innovations that have the potential to drive growth in our business and our sustainable packaging goals,” said Joe Franses, Vice President, Sustainability at Coca-Cola European Partners.

“It also offers us the potential to access vital rPET volume that will help to accelerate delivery of our 100% rPET ambition for our PET bottles.”

Josse Kunst, Chief Commercial Officer at CuRe Technology, said: “The support of CCEP Ventures will enable us to start with opaque and difficult to recycle food grade PET and take the first step towards our ultimate vision of recycling all polyester, again and again.”