PETpla.net Insider 07+08 / 2020

BOTTLING / FILLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 07+08/20 www.petpla.net 47 Gea’s Whitebloc Filling System Aero New filling technology for ESL beverages During the recent years, a key trend in the market for dairy products has resulted in the demand and consequent development of a wide range of high-quality dairy beverages with a prolonged shelf life compared to fresh products, with an increasing request in both developed and emerging markets. Compact design Sensitive, milk-based ESL bever- ages need special requirements to preserve their shelf-life and organo- leptic properties. As such, container decontamination is an essential part of the process to ensure an effective and reliable extended shelf-life in cold chain distribution. The Gea Whitebloc Aero’s design is optimised for the treatment time required in ESL applications; this allows bottle decontamination with dry H 2 O 2 and subsequent activation with warm air to be performed on a single carousel which keeps the layout as compact as possible. The decontamina- tion, filling and capping processes are performed in a simple hygienic cabin with a top-down laminar flow of sterile air with a slight overpressure to main- tain a clean and protected environment. Machine efficiency The ESL market frequently requires producers to run small batches and fill a variety of products on the same machine. The Whitebloc Aero offers the typical production rate of fresh and ESL applications, using both PET and HDPE containers with plastic caps or alumin- ium foil closures and using neck or base handling. The machine can be supplied in a standalone configuration or, for PET bottles, combined with a stretch blow moulding machine. The White- bloc Aero can achieve a wide range of decontamination targets depending on the required level of product sensitivity and shelf-life for both high and low-acid products. Equipment cleaning is fast, cost-effective and flexible thanks to the possibility to choose between the integration of customers’ existing fluid cleaning system or a dedicated clean- ing process skid unit embedded with the Whitebloc Aero. A built-in product recovery system eliminates product waste during the start-up cycle, at the end of production and during change- overs. Filling valves can be equipped with a load cell (weight filling) or flow meter (volumetric filling) to meet the various requirements of the liquid dairy product market. Environmentally sustainable No water is used in the process so producers can be confident that pro- duction is not wasting scarce natural resources. Both bottles and closures are treated using the same chemical for maximum convenience and consistency. Filling system As part of the Aero platform, Gea has developed a dedicated filling system designed specifically for fresh bever- ages, the Aerobloc Fresh. This is a hygienic filling platform for milk and liquid dairy products with a short shelf-life, without requiring any container decon- tamination. Its versatile, modular design allows the option of adding a synchro- nised stretch blow moulding machine or an air rinser and/or a neck trimmer to meet the specific requirements of the product and container material. Together, the Whitebloc Aero and the Aerobloc Fresh completes the range of advanced filling equipment for ESL and fresh bev- erages from Gea as end-to-end dairy processing single-source supplier. Gea states that with its global service support and local technical team, customers can feel confident that their processing and manufacturing infrastructure will work to help ensure their continued business success. www.gea.com Decontamination module as option accord- ing to the required product shelf life