In the past, retro-styled glass bottles or slim 200ml cans have had customers lining up.

This year it's plastic bottles with specially dimpled "grip" waists - although CCA boss Terry Davis admits the previous bottle design wasn't exactly hard to keep hold of.

"I've often asked 'are you sure this will increase sales?', but things like the grip bottle boosted sales by 6 per cent when it was introduced," he says. "It does make a difference, believe it or not."

CCA, which has reported a net profit of $212.7 million after tax for the six months to July 2, credits "new product and package innovation" for part of its 1.5 per cent growth in Australian beverage sales by volume over the first half of the financial year.

To be fair, CCA has also introduced some genuinely new products in recent years, including Vitamin Water, fruit juices and flavoured milk.

"Back in 2001, 95 per cent of our revenue came from carbonated beverages - now it's only 62 per cent," Mr Davis says.

The new packaging uses less PET plastic resin, thus reducing input costs.

CCA is moving to make about 90 per cent of its PET bottles in-house as it shifts to lightweight containers that, when empty, are too fragile to be transported without collapsing under the weight of the bottles stacked above them.

Packaging groups including Amcor have addressed this issue for other clients by building production plants next door to bottling facilities - an option Mr Davis says CCA canvassed with current supplier Visy before deciding to go it alone.

CCA is already making its own PET bottles in NSW and will begin production in Queensland and Victoria next year. Visy will continue to supply some specialty PET bottles.

Mr Davis says the $500 million project is expected to deliver annual cost savings of between $75m and $100m from 2015.

While Pacific Beverages - CCA's alcohol joint venture with British brewer SABMiller - posted an accounting loss of $1m in the first half, Mr Davis says this was not indicative of the health of the business.

"SABMiller draws royalties out of PacBev and we take out an equivalent amount into CCA beverages, so our profits are generated in CCA rather than PacBev," he says.

"It also suits me to make sure that Foster's and Lion Nathan don't know how much I'm earning out of my alcohol business."

PacBev's contribution will be reported separately once it reaches more than 5 per cent of group earnings, he says - equivalent to about $40 million in earnings before interest and tax.

"Hopefully we can do that next year," he says.