At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

Full to Capacity
Coca-Cola Shenmei-Shanghai
Rainer Gras*
Shanghai is China’s boomtown.
Coca-Cola China Ltd. Hong Kong
in Shanghai has been operating a
joint venture since 1988, initially only as a
technical partner but since 1996 also directly
as a co-partner. The province of
Jiangsu and its capitol city of Shanghai is
one of the three provinces in which Coca-
Cola Hong Kong itself participates as a
joint venture partner.
Capacity Limit Reached
Coca-Cola Shenmei, the Shanghai franchise,
has three plants: one in the Minghang
District with a capacity of 2 million hl,
one in the Buoshan District with 800 000
hl, and a branch operation in the Pu Dong
New District which is to be converted to a
3 million litre capacity production plant in
1997.
Since the beginning of the technical cooperation
of Coca-Cola Shanghai,the output
has increased by an average of 20 per
cent annually. The Shenmei filling plant,
located in the Minghang District, has
reached its capacity limits. The 400 employees,
working around the clock, produce
2 million hl each year.
Shenmei fills the Coca-Cola range of
products and Sprite as well as the apple,
lemon, and apricot juices of the Hi-C
brand of fruit juice. In addition, the assortment
of products includes its own brand
of water. Half of the production is filled in
PET bottles, nearly one third in cans, and
about. 20 per cent in glass. At the same
time Shenmei fills briks with fruit juices
and water with its Tetra Pak line.
Cans Growing in Popularity
The 200 ml glass contour deposit
bottles packed in crates are still having a
difficult time on the Shanghai market.
Owing to lack of space, neither the supermarkets
nor the private households have
enough room for storage. Non-returnables
are therefore the preferred market
packaging where cans in particular are
gaining in popularity.
Coca-Cola Shenmei’s most recent joint
venture together with the Bao Shan operation
runs a total of seven filling systems,
four of which are KHS lines.
Production is thus run with one Tetra
Pak and two canning lines,one glass filling
system for 30 000 bph, one PET line, and a
mixed PET-glass line, as well as a hot filling
unit. The combined glass-PET line as
well as an additional glass and can system
for 600 cpm were installed complete with
decrater,bottle washer,filler,and crater after
conclusion of the consultancy agreement
with Coca-Cola in the year 1988. The
combined PET-glass line is designed for
an output of 30000 glass bottles/hour
and 9000 1.25-litre PET bottles/hour and
The combined system fills glass and PET bottles.
SOFT DRINKS
operates at more than 90 per cent efficiency.
This was followed in 1992 by a
66000 cph canning line for 355 ml cans,
also supplied entirely by KHS and including
an integrated mixer from KHS Processtechnik.
Since 1988 the operation inflates
about half of the bottles using its own PET
2 000 bph inflator which was augmented
by a Krupps inflator at the end of 1996. The
PET bottles are presently labelled prior to
filling.
VR Beverage Packaging 1997 17