PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2018

PACKAGING / PALLETISING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 11/18 www.petpla.net 30 Draught Master Draught Master is the 20-litre PET container from Carlsberg with a special tapping system, which guarantees longer-lasting freshness of the beer even after it has been first tapped. In a normal steel keg the freshness will already begin to deteriorate about seven days after first tapping, whereas in the PET keg the beer remains fresh for up to 30 days. This is a crucial consideration when it comes to underlining the pre- mium character of a beer, because the guest in a pub or restaurant also expects a maximally wide diversity of beers. Thanks to Draught Master, restaurateurs are able to offer a broad choice of speciality beers with- out them getting stale, even if the vol- umes concerned are not large. And diversity is definitely much in demand in Denmark: the country’s inhabitants number a mere 5.8 million people, for whom more than 250 microbreweries are currently brewing over 2,500 craft beer varieties. “We would like to convert many more hotels, restaurants and catering outlets from aluminium kegs to the con- tainers of the Draught-Master system, because they’re much easier to handle,” says Jeppe Holm-Jørgensen, who is in charge of the four shifts with two opera- tors each. “Aluminium kegs are returna- ble containers, you see, you need water and chemicals to clean them, the empty kegs require storage space and they’re heavier.” The weight of the filled 20 litre PET kegs is significantly lower than that of aluminium kegs. And the fact that the PET kegs are used as disposable packs makes handling and logistics a whole lot easier. www.krones.com The filler is a special machine from the Modulfill VFS series, with 18 specially modified large-size filling valves. Since PET containers cannot be pre- evacuated, a blowing starwheel is inserted, through which the air in the containers is flushed out by means of carbon dioxide, thus preventing the filled beer from coming into contact with oxygen. After being filled, the containers are trans- ported in carriers suspended on belts. C O N V E Y O R F O R C L O S U R E S Cross conveying Cooling