PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2011

BOTTLING / FILLING 32 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 05/11 www.petpla.net Pepsi and KHS develop new process for hot filling of thin-walled PET bottles for Lipton tea It’s tea time! The Russian market for beverages, especially non-alcoholic drinks, is expanding rapidly. Pepsi Corporation took the deci- sion to launch a brand of preservative-free Lipton Tea in order to capitalize on the opportunity. The company considered to possibilities for packaging without preservatives: aseptic cold filling and hot filling. The major perceived disadvan- tage of aseptic filling was the high capital investment and operating costs; hot-fill, by contrast, would cost about the same as a classic soft-drink filling line. However, there would be some additional costs involved in a traditional hot-fill line, for energy con- sumption and because of the need for heavier PET bottles, which would require vacuum compensation panels. Rajendra Gursahaney, Senior Direc- tor of Engineering, Pepsi Beverages Company, decided that the correct route would be to opt for hot-fill but to work to eliminate the disadvantages. The decision was crucial; if the project failed, the fast launch of preservative- free tea into the Russian market and a considerable sum of invested capital would both be at risk. Pepsi worked with KHS to develop a novel process that would deliver the objectives of timely launch, effective use of capital and acceptable operating costs. Hot- Fill+ is the first hot filling process for bottling still, non-alcoholic beverages in thin-walled PET without the need for vacuum compensation panels. Mr Gursahaney: “The energy problem was solved pretty quickly. Together with KHS we developed an energy recovery process that recov- ered the heat from the warm water generated from the bottle cooler, to heat the incoming beverage.” In order to reduce the weight of the PET bottles, the companies devel- did not work. Pepsi also took on sig- nificant risk in pursuing the project. Mr Gursahaney: “On the one hand, we had to invest in a blow moulder which, if it came to the worst, we couldn’t have used in the clas- sic hot filling process. On the other, if the experiment failed, the produc- tion of Lipton Tea without preserva- tives would be delayed by six months. According to various studies, this would have meant that Pepsi would have lost a large share of the Russian market for tea.” A team of six people was estab- lished, who carried out the testing phase in the KHS Corpoplast labora- tory. Mr Gursahaney: “ The team was made up of specialists from KHS Cor- poplast, from the KHS Filling Technol- ogy Department, and from the com- pany responsible for nitrogen dosing. Lipton’s Technical Manager was also on site to assess the newly devel- oped PET bottles from a technical and marketing point of view. In addition to this permanent team many employ- ees from the companies involved in Hot filling without preservatives: Lipton Tea in PET bottles oped a means of putting nitrogen in the head space of hot-filled PET bot- tles, in order to compensate for any bottle shrinkage after filling. This elimi- nated the need for vacuum compen- sation panels. The idea came from an encounter with a company at Pack- expo Beverage Exhibition in Chicago, which worked with nitrogen dosing. Mr Gursahaney: “I asked them if it could be possible to add nitrogen to a PET bottle that contains a hot bev- erage, in such a way that the nitrogen doesn’t penetrate the beverage but remains solely in the head space of the bottle. The answer was that they couldn’t give me any information as yet but would be willing to research the issue together with Pepsi. That was the first step towards HotFill+.” The research project additionally required a filling technology specialist and a specialist in PET bottle manu- facture. The PET bottle manufacturer chosen was SIG Corpoplast, now KHS Corpoplast, with KHS as the partner for filling technology. Crucially, the two companies were prepared to share the risk of the project and to bear the investment cost if the idea