Food & Beverage Asia June/July 2020

Performative excellence
for aseptics
From sliced bread and barbeque sauces all the way through beverages – the portfolio of food and beverage producer
Spitz in Upper Austria is diversified. The company produces not only numerous brands of its own but also an array
of dealer’s brands for food and beverage retailers. The demand for energy drinks, juices and iced tea are particularly
high, which drove Spitz to invest in a new dry-aseptic line from Krones.
Spitz’s premises are located
on the outskirts of the
small town of Attnang-
Puchheim in Upper Austria,
and houses a production
facility that produces over 12,000
different products that are integral parts
of people’s culinary staples. The food
and beverage producer is now managed
in the third generation by Walter Scherb
jun.
The roots of this company, founded
in 1857, lie in liqueur and schnapps
production. After being taken over
by the Scherb family in the 1950s, it
ventured into the spirits and fruit juice
sectors, and syrups as well. In the next
few decades, Spitz expanded its product
range and added sauces, jams, bread
and pastries to its portfolio.
In the Beverage Division alone, around
10 million containers leave the plant
in Attnang-Puchheim weekly – cans
account for roughly half this figure,
while Spitz also produces beverages
in around three million polyethylene
terephthalate (PET) containers and
about one million each of glass bottles
and cartons.
“In recent years, we’ve been observing
a definite trend: the demand for energy
drinks, juices and iced tea is unbroken,
so our only aseptic was even running in
four shifts,” explained Rudolf Holzinger,
who is responsible for production in
the Beverage Division at Spitz. To avoid
production bottlenecks in the busy
months of summer, Spitz had to invest
in additional filling capacities.
This drove Spitz to contact Krones,
since the two companies have a long
history of successful collaboration. The
firm installed its first Krones filler back
in the 1980s; the first major shared
product was a wet-aseptic line in 2005.
And it was the performance of this line
that induced Spitz to opt once again
for aseptic technology from Krones,
as Holzinger added, “When it comes
to aseptics, trust is crucial. Looking
back, choosing Krones 13 years ago
was the right decision, since so far we
haven’t had any major microbiological
problems.”
Prior experience with Krones’
aseptics
Installation work for the new line
commenced in April 2019, and it went
into operation in August.
Holzinger elaborated, “Summer is
traditionally the holiday season. But
thanks to the hard work and commitment
of everyone involved, we nonetheless
got the commissioning completed
smoothly.”
FOOD & BEVERAGE ASIA JUNE / JULY 2020