Adreco Plastics has been shortlisted for the Plastics Industry Awards 2026 in the Supplier Partnership – Toolmaker category, recognising its work with Dot Dot Bubble Tea on the distinctive over-cap for its new PET bottle range.
The spherical over-cap is a key part of the bottle design, with raised Dot Dot branding moulded directly into its highly visible outer surface. Achieving the required appearance while also incorporating the internal undercut needed to securely locate the cap over the bottle closure presented a significant tooling challenge.
A conventional tooling approach could have required additional mechanical actions, such as slides, lifters or a collapsible core. As well as increasing tooling complexity, these solutions risked introducing unwanted split or witness lines across the spherical cosmetic surface.
Working closely with Dot Dot from the design stage, Adreco’s engineering and toolmaking team developed a solution that allows the moulded cap to strip directly from the core.
The undercut geometry, material behaviour, wall sections and moulding and ejection conditions were considered together to achieve reliable release while maintaining both the functionality and appearance of the finished component.
This enabled the part to be produced using straightforward stripper-plate ejection, eliminating the need for additional mechanical tooling actions. The result is a simpler, more robust production tool with fewer moving components, reduced maintenance requirements and lower whole-life tooling costs, while preserving the clean spherical form central to the product’s design.
Crucially, the tooling strategy was developed collaboratively and validated in CAD before steel was cut. This allowed potential manufacturing and moulding issues to be identified and resolved during the design phase, rather than during tool trials.
The project demonstrates how close collaboration between customer, design, toolmaking and moulding teams can turn a challenging product concept into a practical, production-ready solution.
Dot Dot is the UK’s first ready-to-drink bubble tea brand and is already stocked in Harrods, Selfridges, Ocado and Costco. Its new PET range, for which the over-cap was developed, has also won Best in PET at the UK Soft Drinks Awards 2026 ahead of its retail launch.
Sam Hill, Chief Executive of STH Group, said:
“Yan knew her brand inside out, and she trusted us to get the engineering right without losing what made it hers. That kind of trust matters. Our team matched it with the same care and the same standard we hold ourselves to on everything we build. It’s also the ninth year Adreco been shortlisted for a Plastics Industry Award, and that consistency means as much to me as any single win.”
Adreco has previously won the Supplier Partnership – Toolmaker category four times, in 2017, 2021, 2023 and 2024, and was a finalist in 2025.
The winner of the 2026 Supplier Partnership – Toolmaker category will be announced on the 20th November 2026.
