A concerted team effort between personnel at Graham Packaging's Chalgrove plant in the United Kingdom and Invitrogen, a division of California-based Life Technologies, was key in helping to develop and manufacture the award-winning GIBCO(R: 28.26, 0, 0%) cell culture bottle.

The GIBCO(R: 28.26, 0, 0%) bottle that Graham Packaging produces for Invitrogen is a new cell culture media sterile container designed to improve the efficiency of storage and the ease of use. The bottle won an award for medical packaging in the 2008/2009 AmeriStar competition.

Spencer J. Page, manager of Graham Packaging's Chalgrove plant where the bottle is manufactured, said the development challenges included the bottle's angled neck design, automated application of a new cap with a bore seal, laser etching for traceability, an irradiation process, and stringent packing requirements.

"We're very proud of what we achieved dealing with a demanding design under tight cost and time constraints," he said. "A great deal of thinking outside of the box was required."

The Chalgrove plant has been producing Invitrogen bottles since 1995. Invitrogen brought Graham Packaging into the development of the new bottle early in the process, in 2005. "The Graham Packaging team took each challenge in stride and built and maintained a good rapport with the customer's project team," Page said.

The AmeriStar awards are sponsored by the Institute of Packaging Professionals and are to be presented May 19 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois.

Graham Packaging, based in York, Pennsylvania, is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, and sale of technology-based, customized blow-molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care/specialty, and automotive lubricants product categories. The company has an extensive blue-chip customer base that includes many of the world's largest branded consumer products companies. It produces more than 20 billion container units annually at 82 plants in North America, Europe, and South America, and had sales of $2.58 billion in 2008.

Graham Packaging is a leading U.S. supplier of plastic containers for hot-fill juice and juice drinks, sports drinks, drinkable yogurt and smoothies, nutritional supplements, wide-mouth food, dressings, condiments, and beers; the leading global supplier of plastic containers for yogurt drinks; a leading supplier of plastic containers for liquid fabric care products, dish care products, and hard-surface cleaners; the leading supplier in the U.S., Canada, and Brazil of one-quart/one-liter plastic motor oil containers; and a leading supplier of bottles for personal care products.

The Blackstone Group of New York is the majority owner of Graham Packaging.