PETpla.net Insider 04/ 2013

EDITOURS REPORTS 18 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 04/13 www.petpla.net Highly automated clean filling The flourishing Russian city of Lipetsk is located on the banks of the Voronezh River about 420km south- east of Moscow. Its population of 500,000 mainly works in heavy industry, with one steel plant alone employ- ing 35,000. This means that air quality is an issue in Lipetsk and one reason why they put a special focus on cleanliness in production, as we learned from Vladimir Trofimov, a Director of Rosinka. Cleanliness is achieved with a high degree of automation; even the final stacking and wrapping of the PET bottle packs, completing the packing of the bottled water and juices is undertaken by robots. The company has been growing at about 15% annu- ally, with Spritzer showing the highest growth rates. The product range extends to 55 drinks in total and consists of mineral water, tea, energy drinks (“Tornado” brand), Spritzer (with and without gas), and even an orange-fla- voured cola drink distributed under its own brand name. Water comes from an underground spring about 100m deep (regular drinks) and up to 600m for the mineral water. Vladimir Trofimov says that the water reserves are huge and will last another 100 years. Current pro- duction is 62 million bottles for its own products and 43 million for co-packaging – 105 million in total. In winter the demand for its own drinks dips by 30-40%, while the demand for co-packing products such as energy drinks, for example, is quite stable. Co-packing also includes international companies like Coca Cola. Autumn will see the launch of a juice with pulp, which will require special filling and will be done by either Krones Ultra Clean or hot-fill. The company has three bottling lines in total: one Ultra Clean from Krones (installed last year with a capacity of 15,000bph, one hot-fill line from Berchi Group (10,000bph) and the newest installed CSD line from Kronos (22,000bph). They also have an old glass bottle line, which was acquired when the current owners purchased the company, about ten years ago, as well as a manual 5l filling station. Hotfill products are bottled in 330ml, 500ml and 1l sizes, while CSDs are produced in in 500ml, 1l and 1.5l. The same sizes are used for the Ultraclean line. Caps are purchased from Bericap, while preforms come from Retal and Resilux. By chance we learned from Vladimir that he has just finished his first Iron Man (4km swimming, 180km cycling, 42.2km running) and plans further starts, includ- ing an event in Sweden next year. While Iron Man and the bottling of water may appear to have nothing in common at first glance, the energetic approach and determination of the Iron Man can also be found in this company’s production. www.liprosinka.ru July, 26, 2012 Lipetskpivo We met: Vladimir Lyubanov, General Director Beer filling line at Lipetzkpivo The 30l PET beer keg Lipetskpivo was founded as a state-owned enterprise in 1977, and became apublic traded company in 2002. About 68% of production goes into beer; 14.5% is lemonade and soft drinks; 13% water; and 4.5% to Kwas, the unofficial Russian national beverage. The company’s52 different drinks are filled in 0.5, 1.5 and 2.5l bottles; 1.5l is the most popular size and carries about 50% of production. The company employs Sidel filling and closing monoblocs for 0.5l (12,000bph), 2.5l (9,000bph) and1.5l (24,000bph)and stretch blow moulders from Italian company SMI to pro- duce the 0.5, 1.5 and 2.5l sizes. Lipetskpivo employs about 1,500 people, about 650 of them in production. Its latest innovation is the production line for 30 litre PET kegs, the Innokeg Till PETLine F8. The preform design was created by Czech company Petainer; preforms are supplied by KHS, who also supplied the fully auto- mated filling equipment. Production capacity on this line is 240bph. An integrated scavenger material prevents oxygen penetration, while nylon particles protect the beer from CO 2 loss. Shelf life of the PET kegs is nine months. During the discussion Vladimir Lyubanov explains the advantages of PET, compared to conventional steel kegs. The PET kegs are non-returnable containers and 100% recyclable. The complete PET keg, including fittings, weighs about 400 gr (preform weight: 320g) compared to 6 - 7kg of its metal counterpart. Lower weight alone allows more kegs to be delivered per truck/vehicle, which means that logistics costs can be 20-30% per hl lower. In addition they do not generate costs for returning the kegs to the brewery, saving storing, cleaning and possible repairing costs.