Bringing an Icon Home: Engineering the 42 Below Bottle for Local Production.

Returning the manufacture of an iconic bottle to New Zealand is about far more than changing where it's made. It requires preserving the bottle design consumers recognise while adapting it to local manufacturing processes and capabilities.

For the 42 Below bottle, our role was to help transition manufacturing back to the Antipodes by reverse-engineering the original bottle and preparing it for efficient local production. The challenge was to retain every detail that defined the bottle's identity—from its intricate surface modelling and decorative treatments to its distinctive Kiwi-inspired features—while ensuring the design could be manufactured reliably using local tooling.

The project involved extensive CAD development to recreate the original bottle geometry and produce two production-ready formats: the existing 700 mL bottle and a new, shorter 1.0 L version. Every surface, embossing detail, and decorative feature was carefully refined to preserve the character of the original design while meeting the technical requirements of local glass manufacturing.

Throughout the development process, we optimised the bottle geometry for tooling, manufacturing efficiency, and commercial production without compromising the pack's visual integrity. By balancing technical requirements with the original design intent, we ensured the bottle could be manufactured consistently while maintaining its premium appearance.

Projects like this highlight the importance of technical packaging development in bringing complex designs into production. By combining reverse engineering, CAD development, surface modelling, and manufacturing expertise, we help brands retain their identity while ensuring their packaging is ready for efficient, commercial-scale production.