PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2012

BOTTLING / FILLING 36 PET planet insider Vol. 13 No. 10/12 www.petpla.net de-aerator, so as to remove all the oxygen content. This de-aerator is fitted with an aroma recovery feature for preserving the full taste intensity of the juice. Pre-dosing The finished juice, still separate from the fruit chunks, is now also passed to the filling line, which is located in the separate bottling hall. Its heart is the PET monobloc, com- prising a Contiform H16 hotfill stretch blow-moulding machine, a FlexiFruit filler with a pre-dosing starwheel for the fruit-chunk slurry, the main filler carousel for the juice, plus a capper. The monobloc has been dimensioned for handling 25,000 300ml bph or later on 18,000 1l bph. The pre-dosing machine has 33 valves. Each 300ml PET container is filled with 30mm of slurry. It is able to handle large fruit chunks measuring up to 10 x 10 x 10mm. The main filler possesses 55 valves, each of them fitted with a weighing cell which ensures an accu- rate final fill quantity with a deviation of plus/minus 0.5%. Before the bottles reach the juice filler, the weighing cells simultaneously measure the quantity of slurry dosed into each of them as well, and send this value as feed- back to the pre-dosing filler, ensur- ing that the filling accuracy of each individual pre-dosing valve is continu- ously optimised. Thus each bottle is checked, making sure that the desired fill quantity of 300ml is complied with, irrespective of the slurry filling func- tion. The PET containers are fitted with sterilised 38mm wide-neck plastic screw-caps with an O 2 scavenger. The hotfill monobloc features inte- grated automatic CIP (Cleaning in Place) and SIP (Sterilisation in Place) systems. Dry end The filled and capped containers are passed through a Linacool cool- ing tunnel, where in six stages, under minimised vacuum formation, they are gently cooled down within 40min to an ambient temperature of 27 to 30°. Dry-lubricated conveyors with a built-in buffering section holding 6,000 bottles then take the containers first to a blower-type drier and then to the labeller, a Sleevematic model that can dress the bottles both in full sleeves and in part-sleeves plus neck-sleeves. The drinks are packaged in as 3 x 2-, 3 x 4-, 6 x 4-, or 6 x 5-bottle packs. Technical Director Magdy Ismail explains “Production started on July 12, 2011, and by August 1, 2011 we were on the market. The bottling line’s performance is at over 80%.” The bottled products remain in the bay-type warehouse for five days, and are released when they have passed the microbiological examination in the lab. For the not-too-distant future, CCBE is not only examining addi- tional flavours with fruit chunks, but also producing Cappy just with pulp, as well as larger containers holding up to one litre, and lighter containers than the 25g preform currently in use, by retrofitting the filler with a nitrogen droppler feature to run the NitroHotfill process. Since August 2011, the line has been up and running in two-shift oper- ation, with six operators each for the process section and the bottling line, new staff hired specifically for this line. A service agreement with Krones has been in force since January 1,2011, with a term of three years, and covers the 20 Krones lines at CCBE in Egypt. www.krones.com The main f ller possesses 55 valves. Cappy FruitBite, as the only fruit juice so far being marketed in PET contain- ers, with the additional benef t of the full-fruit content, is offered as a pre- mium product at a higher price. Dry-lubricated conveyors with a built-in buffering section holding 6,000 bottles. End-of-the-line packaging is handled by a Variopac Pro TFS.