At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

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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
SOFT DRINKS No vehicle is too small: Almost half of all PET bottles are currently being purchased. PET Filling Together With Fully Automatic Labeller An order for a new 30 000 1.5-litre bph PET line – the fastest PET line in China – has now been placed with KHS destined for a new plant planned for 1997; the third in the joint venture. The new PET filling line has been designed according to the most recent technological and engineering concepts. The Innofill EV volumetric filler, blocked with a KHS rotary rinser, guarantees accurate filling volume-setting and fastest possible change-over to various bottle sizes. The filling volume-setting can be varied by simply pushing a button on the operator panel. The filler is blocked by a star to the rotary Innoclean rinser. Various alternatives are possible for infeeding empty PET bottles. Empty PET bottles can be stacked on pallets, even pallets in worst possible condition are automatically processed by direct depalletizing and infeeding to the rinser-filler block. The implementation of an unscrambler of suitable capacity is provided as an alternative for bulk PET bottles in order to perfectly handle not only bulk bottles but also bad pallet material and at the same time maintain full system performance. The involvement of the KHS Innoket roll-feed labeller rounds off this high-tech filling line.After filling,the Coca-Cola contour bottles are labelled with roll-fed, plastic sleeve labels. This is the first time that a non-returnable PET Coca-Cola bottling line has been designed to include a fully automatic labeller. Increasing Demand Requires Rebuilding of Factory Also located on the present Shenmei production plant site is a Coca-Cola concentrate factory which serves export and all of China. Owing to the great demand, this plant has also reached its capacity limit and needs to be rebuilt. A phenomenon in Shanghai, particularly during the initial phase, was that Sprite was more popular than Coca-Cola itself. This stems from old traditions. It was just a few years ago that tea was the primary drink for refreshment.Bottled soft drinks from local operations had only a small share of the market. The clearness of Sprite conveyed the impression of being a clean, high quality beverage. But in the meanwhile Shanghai’s consumers have apparently grown accustomed to their Coke: The demand is increasing. With a population of 14 million each additional litre consumed results in a tremendous leap in filling. Coca-Cola has received the production licence from the Chinese government for 23 provinces in which plants may be constructed but always in conjunction with a Chinese joint venture partner. Coca-Cola has transferred a major portion of the provinces to its partners, the Swire and Kerry Groups; only in the three provinces Hainan (vacation islands in the far south), Hebei (Tianjin), and Jiangsu (Shanghai) does Coca-Cola still operate filling centres itself, together with jointventure partners. ❏ *Rainer Gras is Asian Sales Director,KHS,Bad Kreuznach, FRG Further Tests for Flexible Jug in Canada A stand-up, re-closable pouch system for pasteurised products from Tetra Pak was introduced to the Canadian market in September 1996 by Dairyworld of Burnaby, British Columbia. It launched a four-liter, multi-layer LDPE package in Vancouver supermarkets and has recently expanded distribution to cover outlets in Toronto. The flexible jug has a closable spout and carry handle an is being used to replace plastic pillow pouches, dominant in pasteurised milk packaging since the 1970s. ❐ Crystal Clear Canadian bottler Aberfoyle Springs Water Company, Aberfoyle/Ontario, has chosen EASTAPAK PET polyester from Eastman Chemical Company for its bottles, which are supplied by Ontario-based Twinpak Inc. Bob Elliott, president of Aberfoyle, commented that the excellent clarity of the bottles with no taste or odour reflected the pristine quality of the water. ❐ 18 VR Beverage Packaging 1997
Page 1 and 2: At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Fil
Page 3 and 4: COVER STORY At the Cutting Edge of
Page 5 and 6: DESIGN Style Comes to the Plastic B
Page 7 and 8: Tear and stack DESIGN Travel bottle
Page 9 and 10: BEER speed glass bottling line was
Page 11 and 12: BEER look of the design on the fini
Page 13: BEER To meet rising demand, Kaiser
Page 17 and 18: GLASS/PET Chopping and Changing Gla
Page 19 and 20: GLASS/PET New RefPET Plant in the C
Page 21 and 22: CANS Photo: The Coca-Cola Company I
Page 23 and 24: CARTONS A Bottle Made of Cardboard
Page 25 and 26: LABELLING clean and dry. This enabl
Page 27 and 28: BITS & PIECES More Than Just Bottle

At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

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