Sustainable beverage production at its best: Swiss-based Sidel Group has now sold its 50th Predis™ to the Polish co-packer Sokpol in order to aseptically blow, fill and cap its fruit juices in PET bottles in the same Combi machine.
Predis™ is a unique well-proven dry preform decontamination system of the whole beverage industry available for all types of sensitive products, including UHT milk, juice and nectar, tea, isotonic, CSD without preservatives, ESL liquid dairy products (milk, yogurt, yogurt with small fruit pieces), and water. Predis™ allows being simply aseptic with the guarantee of bottle sterilization directly at the preform phase without using any water. Fifty Combi Predis™ systems sold worldwide, equivalent to 4.5 billion bottles produced with Predis™ to date, saving 550 million liters of water and around 1 million liters of chemical agents.
New aseptic bottling capacity for Sokpol Poland
The Polish co-packer Sokpol increased its processing capabilities last year by investing in its second aseptic Combi Predis™ FMa. This growth-oriented family-run enterprise is one of the most innovative co-packers in Poland with a strong customer base in the fruit juices. Roman Sobczyk, President, emphasized the simplicity of Sokpol‘s strategy: “We guarantee our clients high quality, good prices and support with excellent service.” When Sokpol invested in its first Combi Predis™ FMa in 2008, the company was filling cartons, glass bottles and jars. Such investment enabled Sokpol to aseptically blow, fill and cap its fruit juices in PET bottles in the same machine. While purchasing the second Combi Predis™ FMa, Mr. Sobczyk wanted to double its bottling capacity: “Our current capacity was and still is not enough. If we wanted to implement all of our projects and produce more effectively without, for example, having to change formats often, we needed the additional line.” Both Combi Predis™ FMa complete lines are able to fill more than 25,000 bottles per hour in small formats, 0.3L and 0.5L, representing 150 million small bottles annually. Because of its greater filler capacity and cap change flexibility, Sokpol is aiming to run its new line with overall efficiency >90% – a goal that is becoming realistic due to the high performances of the Sidel aseptic filler which permits a continuous run of 120 hours in high acid production, without intermediate sanitation, and a cleaning and sterilizing step completed within three hours “bottle-to-bottle”.
Sidel, pioneer and clear leader in dry preform decontamination
Sidel started with the dry preform decontamination by H2O2 spray in 1998, with the Combi Disis™.
Originally the system was developed for liquid food products sold in the cold chain specifically for flavoured milk. A few years later, the system was introduced for UHT chocolate milk sold at ambient distribution.
Then, in 2006, the first Combi Predis™ with dry preform decontamination by H2O2 vapor for ESL dairy products sold in the cold chain, with drinking yogurt as the first product in use, was launched. In 2008, Combi Predis™ was also sold for high acid, carbonated juices without preservatives at ambient temperature. Finally, the year 2009 marked the first Combi Predis™ for aseptic low acid products sold at ambient temperature, especially for UHT milk. Altogether, this amounts to more than 12 years experience with and the sale of 65 preform decontamination systems including both Disis™ and Predis™, once more emphasizing Sidel’s role as an industry pioneer when it comes to beverage packaging technology.
Combi Predis™: A step forward to Sidel’s Combi concept
With its Combi solution launched in 1997, Sidel presented the market with a system which combined bottle blow molding, filling and capping in a single enclosure. Today, almost 400 Combis have been installed all around the world. Expanding the Combi solution even further, the Predis™ technology is also included in this overall system: the Combi Predis™. It is offered in different configurations depend¬ing on the products to be filled, from water to UHT milk, and the distribution channel chosen, cold chain or ambient temperature. With this broad portfolio of Combi solutions, Sidel has the most complete range offering in the market. |
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Predis™, simply aseptic
The Combi Predis™ FMa replaces bottle rinsing by peracetic acid (PAA) with dry decontamination of preforms using hydrogen peroxide vapor (H2O2). The system reduces the number of machines and the overall footprint. It guarantees high decontamination performance without water consumption and uses only tiny amounts of chemicals. As part of the blowing process of a bottle, a preform is heated at a temperature close to 100°C and finally blown into a mold. Time and temperature to heat up the preform during the heating process in the oven are enough to activate the small quantity of cold condensate H2O2. This in turn ensures a 100 percent bottle decontamination rate for a totally secure bottle production process. Combined with high performance UV-C decontamination devices, the sterile air used for bottle blow-molding as well as the sterile air environment in the Combi, bottles are blown and kept sterile until the filling and cappings steps.
Economical, ecological and flexible
The concept is both economic and environmentally friendly: No water or liquid effluent consumption, great bottle lightweighting potential, a more compact configuration and lower maintenance costs. Thanks to continuous by-the-neck transfers and the absence of any thermal stress on empty bottles, the Combi solution offers great bottle light weighting potential and total bottle shape design freedom.
Predis™ offers high availability: Full cleaning and sterilizing cycles are achieved within 3 hours “bottle–to-bottle” after 120 hours nonstop production without intermediate sterilization.
The system with its fast format and product changeovers is easy to maintain and needs only one operator to supervise the production.
Combi Predis™ systems, producing between 8,000 and 40,000 bottles per hour, are retrofitable on SBO Universal blow-molders for ESL products. The same dry decontamination technology for preforms is available for caps treatment with Capdis™.
