Japanese beverage company Sangaria has installed the Versatile Sidel Aseptic Combi Predis to handle aseptic carbonated and still drinks in PET bottles on the same line.
The new line will enable Sangaria to handle both green tea and still waters and will also enable it to widen its production portfolio in the future.
With the new filling line, Sangaria is running the production of 500ml bottles at 24,000 bottles per hour (bph). The production flexibility is also enhanced with the toolless mould changeover, the Bottle Switch, which enables fast interventions.
The main objective for Sangaria was to invest in a new aseptic PET packaging line, able to produce sparkling water, carbonated soft drinks (CSD) and still beverages while offering production flexibility for new product launches in the future.
As carbonated beverages, including sparkling water and green tea, are booming in Japan, Sangaria was looking for an increase in its production capacity. With the Sidel Versatile Aseptic Combi Predis, it enlarged its capability to produce still beverages and CSD aseptically in PET bottles on the same line. This allows increased production flexibility with the same filling magnetic valve to aseptically handle all sensitive low and high acid products with no need for valve changeovers while ensuring reliability and product integrity.
Sangaria now can manage various milk-based products and barley green tea – previously bottled on hot-filling lines – as well as healthy sparkling water in 500ml and 1L containers.
The technology at the core of the Sidel Versatile Aseptic Combi Predis merges dry preform sterilisation with aseptic blowing, filling and sealing functions within a single production enclosure. As such, it respects the fundamental concept that underpins aseptic packaging rules: producing a commercially sterile product, filled in a sterile zone, in a previously sterilised package.
It differs from traditional aseptic technology because the package sterilisation takes place at the preform rather than at the bottle phase. It offers a sterilised blowing process as well as fast and safe product and format changeovers with limited manual intervention for continuous aseptic production time up to 200 hours.
In addition Sidel says the producer can lower its total cost of ownership as the Versatile Aseptic Combi Predis does not use any water and very few chemicals for preform sterilisation.
