PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2010

BOTTLING / FILLING 29 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 04/10 www.petpla.net positioning has been a suc- cess. A recent addition to the product range is carbonated water in a 0.5l, 25g bottle with a 28 PCO cap. The car- bonation level is 4%. For the coming year the first filling line for flavoured water will be installed in Sahibabad. Here, because of the law prohibit- ing coloured bottles, Bisleri has a problem of shelf life but they are working hard to solve the problem as they expect to open up new markets with this product. In India we had the opportunity to visit two of the Bisleri plants. These were the plant in Sahibabad, well developed industrial area of Uttar Pradesh and only a few kilometres north-east of Delhi, which was inaugurated only in 2006, and the plant in Delhi itself, which is currently undergoing renovation. Both plants are very similar in their basic layout. The water goes through a 7-stage purification process; two SBM machines feed the containers to a single filling line where the water is bottled. The filling speed is about 120bpm. Both plants have plenty of space avail- able for expansion and at the moment are filling between 30 and 50 lakh* cases per annum, which equates to between 42 and 70 million litres. * 1 lakh = 100,000 Sahab Singh (centre) DGM -Technical at Bisleri Kadeer Khan (centre), Director Corporate Affairs at Bisleri