PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2013

BOTTLING / FILLING 31 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 03/13 www.petpla.net Vongsay, “We’re budgeting with sales figures of about 1.5 million hl for 2015. If this prognosis materialises, the volume of bottled water will be almost half of our beer output. In the long term we can envisage our water sales equalling our sales of beer.” Equipment Three bottle sizes are filled on the new line: 0.35, 0.6, and 1.5l PET container. The 0.6l size is especially popular on the market, accounting for about 90% of total water sales. The line can output 45,000 0.6 and 0.35l, and 20,000 1.5l bph. Just one single brand of water is bottled at the plant: Tigerhead. On its PET line Lao Brewery has opted for a mono- blocked stretch blow moulding/filling/ capping system in the shape of an InnoPET BloFill. The bottles are pro- duced by an InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow moulder. The stretch blow moulded PET bottles are turned Lao Brewery Co., Ltd... …is headquartered in the capital. Lao Brewery was founded in 1973 as a joint venture between the state of Laos and French investor BGI. In 1975 the state purchased all of BGI’s shares in the brewery. In 1993 the companies Loxley and Italian Thai joined the state-owned brewery. In 2002 Carlsberg acquired an initial 25% share in the brewery business, which was raised to 50% in 2005. Since 2011 Carlsberg has held 51% of the company and the state of Laos 49%. Lao Brewery runs three production facilities: two in Vientiane and one in Pakse. The parent plant in Vientiane chiefly bottles beer and water. The second Vientiane site, which has been a part of the group since the 2011 merger with the Lao Soft Drink Company, bottles the Pepsi brand range. The brewery in Pakse, opened mid-2007, produces beer for the southern part of the country. Pakse is the second-largest city in Laos and close to the borders of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. This production facility also exports to these three countries. www.beerlao.la Laos Geography Laos or the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordering on China, Viet- nam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar. Laos has a tropical cli- mate with high temperatures. Demographics The country has a population of around seven million and a surface area of 236,800km². The capital of Vientiane is the most densely populated region. Beverage consumtion The growing consumption of bottled beverages is inextricably linked to an increase in income (currently ~ € 820per capita / pa, compared to only € 700 in 2008). And the trend is upwards. Vienti- ane salaries are especially high compared to the rest of the coun- try and are rising fast. Approxi- mately 40% of all beer and about 50% of all non-alcoholic bever- ages in the country are sold to the people who live here. and passed on to the filler by a transfer wheel. The bottles are filled with water by an electronically controlled Innofill NV normal pressure filling system with 60 filling stations. The capping system implemented here is the proven, clas- sic Innofill SV screw capper. Downstream of the filling and cap- ping processes bottle fill levels and caps are inspected by the Innocheck IFMS filler management system based on the Innocheck platform. Each and every PET bottle can be directly allocated to its specific filling valve and capping head. The labeller is an Innoket 360. The Innoket 360 installed at Lao Brewery features an integrated tamper-evident sleeve applicator. The tamper-evident sleeve is applied to the bottle neck at the labeller discharge, thus saving space. The Tigerhead brand is thus completely tamper-proof. The label position and seating of the tamper-evident sleeve are monitored by an Innocheck LPI label inspection system integrated on the Innocheck platform. Once the bottles are dressed with the appropriate labels, they are conveyed to an Innopack PPZ packer. This packs the 0.6 and 0.35l bottles into boxes of 24, and the 1.5l bottles into cartons of 12. The cartons are pal- letised by an Innopal PBL1N1 equipped with a low-level pack feed. The load is then finally secured by a stretch film wrapper before being delivered to the points of sale. www.khs.com Lao Brewery has a 98% share of the beer market in Laos. Carlsberg has held a 51% share in Lao Brewery since 2011. The remaining 49% belong to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Kissana Vongsay, the Managing Direc- tor of Lao Brewery Co., Ltd.,