PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2019

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 11/19 www.petpla.net 15 From greenfield project to four lines StrongPack first started their dis- cussions with Sidel a few years ago when they entered the beverage bot- tling business, targeting a greenfield project with two complete lines, one for cans and the other one handling PET bottles. These lines started run- ning in 2018 and back then were mainly dedicated to packaging RC Cola, one of the leading cola brands in the world, established in 1905. Their performance and reliability per- fectly matched the co-packer’s expec- tations, and as a result, StrongPack invested in another two complete PET lines, one standard PET and one inte- grating Sidel’s Actis in Combi configu- ration. Planned on a new site of 8.4 ha and housed in a building of 32,000m 2 in Agbara, an industrial area close to Lagos, this greenfield project was especially challenging. According to the Managing Director of StrongPack, at full development, 1.2 billion litres of non-alcoholic beverages per year will be produced at the site. CSD packaged in different container types and formats Thanks to the successful partner- ship with Sidel, the Nigerian co-packer now has a future-proof factory with four complete lines, where the equipment and processes are efficiently laid out, allowing them to do quick changeo- vers and fast CIPs for great production reliability and flexibility. The overall production capacity of the Agbara plant currently lies at 850 million PET bot- tles per year, including both standard and coated bottles. The two regular PET packaging lines are running at 36,800bph and 46,000bph. In addition, the versatile canning line produces 40,000cph. For the latter, the entire line layout and concept has originally been developed to support non- alcoholic malt production, a beverage which is quite popular in Nigeria. Lightweighted bottle saves 3 t of PET resin per day The complete PET line featuring Actis in a Combi configuration and handling two bottle formats (35cl and 50cl) is fuelling the unique production advantages offered to CSD brands by the Agbara site. Actis (Amorphous Carbon Treatment on Internal Surface) is Sidel’s proven plasma coating tech- nology, promising to extend the shelf life of beverages by up to five times while enabling package lightweighting, yet with no compromises on recycla- bility. These benefits, paired with the ease of operations and the many Actis references installed globally, currently accounting for more than five billion bottles produced across CSD, beer, juices, tea and coffee, are exactly why StrongPack selected this solution. “The reduction of the 35cl bottle weight down to 15.5g allows us to roughly save about 3 t of resin per day. That is 3 t that are not going to the landfill,” says StrongPack. Helped by the Actis technology and the increased shelf life of the PET bottles, StrongPack plans to reach additional markets in West Africa that otherwise would not be available to them. Choosing Actis also offered the opportunity to develop a new bottle design for their 35 cl and 50 cl formats, which not only matches Actis’ require- ments but also stands out at the point of sale – a key factor in the Nigerian market. www.sidel.com German Technology November 12-14, 2019 Nuremberg, Germany At the Krones Booth Hall 7A, Booth 510