PETpla.net Insider 06+07 / 2014

BOTTLING / FILLING 44 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 06+07/14 www.petpla.net Pinar Su, Turkey, invests in SMI line Turkey takes to the water Pinar Su, is a producer of natural mineral water in Turkey. The company con- tinues to invest in new solu- tions for bottling and pack- aging its products. Among the latest projects imple- mented by Pinar Su, the Turkish company decided to install a new bottling and packaging line of 6,000bph for large capacity containers (3.25l, 5l and 10l). Water from the source Driven by the increasing attention to health and physical well-being, Turk- ish consumers have, in recent years, boosted the demand for bottled natural mineral water that in 2011 reached a record 9.3 billion litres. The per capita consumption, equal to 126l each year, is today very similar to that seen in major European countries, evidence of the high level of development and well- being that the Turkish economy has now reached. Pinar Su has been on the market since 1984. It was the first company to bottle and market natural mineral water in Turkey. Pinar Su water is bottled at the source in accordance with the high- est quality standards and is marketed in Turkey and abroad under the name “Pinar Yasam Pinarim”, which means “Pinar: my source of life”. The natural sources of Pinar water are located in three different areas of Turkey, unpolluted and far away from industrial or highly urbanised locations. The bottling plants of Bozdogan (Aydin province), Eğridir (Isparta province) and Hendek (Sakarya province) feature the latest generation technologies for the bottling and packaging of pure spring water. For example, the filling opera- tions take place in hygienically clean environments and the water is sub- jected to continuous chemical, physical and microbiological controls to test its quality during the various stages of the production process. Blowing/filling/capping The SMI line was purchased for Pinar Su’s manufacturing plant in Hendek, a city of 45,000 inhabitants in the province of Sakarya, a few kilo- metres from the Black Sea coast. The beginning of the collaboration between SMI and Pinar Su dates back to 2005, when the latter purchased an automatic Smiflexi LSK 30 F model shrinkwrapper for shrink film packaging. The Hendek plant has an annual production capacity of 607,000t, and bottles the Pinar natural water in 0.33l, 0.5l, 1l, 3l, 5l and 10l PET containers. The decision to install an “ad hoc” line dedicated to large capacity containers was dictated by the sharp increase in sales of these collations, the marketing of which joined the already consolidated one of traditional bottles from 0.33 to 1l. The “line engineering” project devel- oped by SMI, taking into the account the demanding parameters specified by Pinar Su, has led to the creation of a new bottling plant for natural mineral water of 6,000bph. The “turnkey” line supplied to the Turkish company for its Hendek plant includes a compact Ecobloc Smiform system for stretch-blow moulding, fill- ing/capping of PET containers of large capacity, a Smiline DV 500 divider, a Smiflexi SK 600 F model shrinkwrapper, a Smipack HA 60 handle applicator and a Smipal APS 3080 PR model auto- matic palletising system. The line also comprises the connecting conveyors among the system’s various machines and ancillary equipment such as a rotary labeller and a loop winder with an airtight cycle for the protection of the pallets. Smiform’s integrated system installed at the facility of Pinar Su pro- duces 3.25l and 5l PET containers at the speed of 6,000bph and 10l contain- ers at 4,200bph. With only one machine the company can now achieve the production capacity achieved previously using two linear blow moulders with related filling/capping machines. End of the line There is a Smiline DV50 model divider at the Smiflexi SK 600 F shrink- wrapper inlet that sorts containers with a square base; this divider receives bulk products in a single row, divides them over multiple rows and channels them into the secondary packaging machine to be packaged in shrink film only. More specifically, the 3.25l bottles are grouped in the 2x1 and 3x1 collations while the 5l containers are grouped in the 2x1 colla- tion and the 10l ones in the 1x1 collation. At the SK 600 F shrinkwrapper outlet there is an automatic Smipack HA 60 handle applicator that applies a handle to the 2x1 and 3x1 packs of 3.25l bottles, while the larger packs containing the 5 and 10l bottles pass by without being “fitted with handles”.