At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

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SOFT DRINKS Flexible Soft Drink Pack The Joseph Dunn Group, based in Glasgow/Scotland, recently installed two Gualapack CHP 30 fillers, along with an APV pasteuriser, to exploit the growing market for Cheerpacks in the UK. The decision to invest in the Cheerpack has been rewarded with listings of the STILL brand by two UK. multiples and successes with several cash and carry groups. Gualapack asked Mr Gerard Dunn, the operations director of the Joseph Dunn Group,for his views on the Cheerpack success story. According to Gerard Dunn, the Cheerpack is one of the most innovative soft drinks packs on the market; it provides an immediate and strong point of differentiation when compared with other packag- Breaking the Ice Lawson Mardon Packaging – Flexibles has produced a new stand-up pouch for readymixed freezer cocktails from United Distillers.The freezer cocktails are sold in liquid form and frozen at home to produce crushed-ice style drinks. Consumer convenience, shelf life at ambient temperature and a strong visual appearance were the criteria set for the packaging. LMP-Flexibles met these with the 250 ml, three-dimensional stand-up pouch which is formed and filled on a Hoeller packaging machine. ing formats. Consumers like the pack’s recloseable feature and the fact that it is unbreakable. In addition, the soft feel of the pack appeals to the often overlooked tactile sense. Realising the Cheerpack’s excellent potential for graphics, the Still brand was designed to make full use of the excellent reproduction that gravure print offered, Mr Dunn commented. “Retailers in the UK. are looking for innovative products in what is a competitive market sector. Cheerpack’s futuristic appearance, coupled with the fresh, thirst-quenching Still drinks developed by Joseph Dunn, meet this requirement”, he said. The Cheerpack is filled using two Gualapack CHP 30 fillers supplied with pasteurised product from the APV pasteur- The pouch, which freezes within three to four hours, is composed of a four-ply iser. Processing and filling equipment is located within a modern purpose-built bottling hall. CHP 30 fillers are efficient, operator-friendly and easy to mantain. Gualapack has supplied over 100 fillers world-wide and operates a comprehensive technical assistance service for its partners. “The Joseph Dunn Group may be one of Gualapack’s newest partners but the relationship is one which is beginning to show positive results through close co-operation. Future prospects for the Cheerpack are encouraging and the Joseph Dunn Group will continue to invest to support the Cheerpack’s bright future,” Mr Dunn concluded. ❐ laminate with aluminium foil as a primary barrier. An inner heat seal ply of polyethylene was chosen to give secure liquidtight seals and additional strength and stability is achieved through the use of a second polyester film between the aluminium foil and polyethylene. Residual oxygen level of the laminate is controlled to achieve a minimum shelf life of twelve months. A refrigerator door decorated with magnets is depicted on the front of the pouch; these graphics are achieved by reverse printing polyester in seven-colour gravure. ❐ VR Beverage Packaging 1997 19
GLASS/PET Chopping and Changing Glass and PET Bottles on the Same Line? It is more and more often the case nowadays that the packaging chosen for a product is a major weapon in the fierce battle for market share, as it helps to create a distinctive identity.Almost half of all the packaging used for non-alcoholic drinks around the world is made of plastic. The proportion of non-alcoholic drink packaging accounted for by plastic bottles in France amounts to 71% (cans and glass bottles: 18%). A considerable increase in the use of PET (to 40%) is anticipated with mineral water in the countries of the European Union, which is likely to be primarily at the expense of glass. PET bottles are expected to hold far more than 50% of the market for carbonated soft drinks and fruit juice drinks by the turn of the century. Glass Must Fight Harder Past experience has shown that thirst tends to increase with the Gross National Product and non-alcoholic beverages are a particularly popular choice with consumers here. There are opportunities in this area for the lightweight PET bottle. If the glass bottle does not succeed in losing even more weight, it will have to fight harder to hold on to its markets in future – even though glass still has plenty of supporters who are convinced that the disadvantage of its weight is compensated for by its advantages. The outcome is that bottlers of leading beverage brands frequently have to chop and change their filling lines. Although the technology for alternate processing of these materials can in the meantime be considered mature,it still requires experience and a great deal of new equipment. It is not therefore possible to claim that this technology is in widespread use yet. Since competition is tough and since many different companies are investigating or using PET bottles and the filling technology needed to process them, it is,however,undeniable that a large percentage of non-alcoholic soft drinks bottlers are certain that PET and similar materials have a promising future. This is true in particular of the machine manufacturing industry. Processing glass and plastic on the same filling line simultaneously is, however, to all intents and purposes out of the question. It will continue to be necessary to fill one type of bottle today and the other tomorrow. Specialists insist that simultaneous processing is practically impossible from the technical point of view, at least at prices that companies would be willing to pay. Complicated Modification The alternative processing of glass and PET bottles still involves a large amount of complicated technical modification, primarily because the filling lines run by beverage companies belong to a previous generation. Where PET bottles are used in a returnable system, they have to be able to withstand the high temperatures the bottles are subjected to in the washing equipment – and they normally require lower temperatures than this. PET producers have in the meantime started to supply heat-stable material that can be cleaned with water at temperatures of up to 75°C. These highly crystalline returnable PET bottles are not only more suitable for the washing process; they also cut the risk of taste migration, while they are said to reduce waste as well. SLW (global market leader in the production of such bottles) and PLM in Lidköping (another major producer) both use similar arguments to draw particular attention to the reduction in weight. They claim it leads to lower CO 2 absorption, a lower residual acetaldehyde level (less than 1 microgram/litre), a reduction in the impact of the raw material price and less handling and transport costs. The bottle with a white crystalline mouth that is used by GDB (Genossenschaft Deutscher Brunnen) is one example of the hot filling of hot-wash PET. According to information provided by bottling companies, there is a definite trend away from the alternative bottling of different materials. Companies that started bottling in PET at an early stage did not yet have special PET filling equipment. Glass filling lines had to be modified so that they could process PET. As soon as the machine manufacturers became convinced that there would be a market for PET, they started to customise machines to process PET bottles. Krones, Kettner and KHS are prominent manufacturers that can be mentioned in this context. The development started with new cleaning equipment that took account of the requirements of PET in their operations. Bottling machines have in the meantime been introduced with neck ring gripping facilities. The bottle is pulled upwards to the filling element by its neck ring instead of being raised by lifting cylinders that engage the base. This makes it possible to compensate for differences in bottle height that are attributable to material shrinkage. The bottles have different wall thicknesses too: some 1-litre glass bottles still weighed more than 900 grams only a few years ago, whereas the plastic of a 1.5-litre PET bottle tips the scales at just 106 grams. Unavoidable Alterations Modifications are therefore unavoidable if a glass bottling line is to be used alternately to process PET bottles as well. PET bottles require different programme from glass bottles. Change parts in particular are what need to be modified: infeed screws, intermediate screws, infeed and discharge carousels, transfer carousels and gripper units and inspectors (control devices) – “sniffers” as they are known, which detect odours, for example. Consumers sometimes fill returnable bottles with liquids that leave traces of extremely dominant odours – which adhere 20 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 and 14: BEER To meet rising demand, Kaiser
Page 15: SOFT DRINKS No vehicle is too small
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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