PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2019

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 03/19 www.petpla.net 24 All around worry-free filling In Holland, MI, we arrived at the family owned company Fogg Filler. Ben Fogg, a third-gener- ation member of the family is now leading the company. Fogg is very well known for its exper- tise in filling equipment for sensitive beverages such as dairy or juice. Susan Lamar, Media Relation Manager welcomes us in the new and well-designed building. We began by making a tour through the plant and were introduced to the workflow of Fogg Filler. Tour Sponsors: We met Susan Lamar, Media Relation Manager (photo left) Susan explained that the com- pany was founded in 1956 by Clyde Fogg. He was one of the pioneers in modernising filling systems for plastic containers by adjusting valves, cap- pers and introducing special bottle handling for the new material. He incorporated it into existing dairy fill- ers. From this time on, the company was to develop state-of-the-art filling equipment. Susan went on to say that in 2000 Mike Fogg, the father of Ben, using all his engineering and manage- ment expertise, migrated Fogg Filler to the extended shelf life (ESL) indus- try, focusing efforts on clean, efficient filling for hot and cold applications. Before entering the production hall Susan tells us about the speciality in the hot-filling process: in hot-filling temperature management is always a concern. For this reason, Fogg Filler has created a unique temperature management system. A product evac- uation tube inside the bowl pumps 5-50 gpm out of the bowl and sends it back to the kitchen for re-working when line stops occur. The product never comes into contact with the atmosphere so it can be re-processed in accordance with regulations. In the cold fill process of filling juices or other products with ESL, it is impor- tant to kill all micro-organisms for sanitation. Fogg offers Microb-blasters using UV light or chemicals to sanitise the caps and ensure the product stays safe. Fogg equipment fills flowable liquids (still, carbonated, flavoured or non-flavoured, with high ph) in PET bottles. In the manufacturing hall we see the production of rotary filling, rinsing and capping systems. Fogg is equipped with contoured stainless- steel filler bowls from 2 ft. up to 12 ft diameter, 1-120 filling valves, inte- grated rinser and/or capping systems. Fogg offers gravity filling systems with speeds and bottle handling technol- ogy to assure optimum production rates possible to fill from 10 - 1,200 bpm on a single serve bottle. Fogg has designed a capper to ensure effortless operation. For mul- tiple capping applications there is a large variety of closure systems: snap caps, snap-screw and screw caps can be run on the same machine. Fogg cappers feature quick-change capping chucks that add versatility in changing cap size and container. After getting to know the world of Fogg, Susan goes on to tell us also about their specially written manu- als for each machine. These manu- als should help machine builders and customers understand their Fogg machinery. This is necessary because Fogg produces 20-70 machines a year. by Heike Fischer Filling Special Fogg largest F 12 filler has an output of 1,200bpm on a single serve bpttle Cutting plastic templates for machine production