Image courtesy of Getty Images
Although Oscar De la Renta is synonymous with fashion designs worn by a group of distinguished women and celebrities, his brand saw international wholesale growth beginning in 2003. Today, as De la Renta’s designs are accessible in his retail stores, online, and with select wholesale partners worldwide, the late fashion designer described the market by saying: “Now is the most exciting time in fashion. Women are controlling their destiny now, the consumer is more knowledgeable, and I have to be better every single day.” Egg Packing Machine
Similarly, when it comes to the beverage industry, consumers are increasingly more knowledgeable about the drinks they consume, creating demand for product and packaging innovations. As such, experts note that current market trends are impacting can filling and seaming equipment.
“For example, consumers are demanding ‘healthier’ drinks causing an increased interest in hybrid or fusion drinks, such as fruit juices mixed with tea, as well as sparkling water,” says Tommaso Tegoni, product manager for filling at Sidel, Octeville sur Mer, France. “Alongside this, we are seeing some ‘mouthfeel’ innovations, using nitro cans, and adding viscosity through purees and jellies.
“Equipment now needs to perform changeovers in minimal time while handling carbonated and still beverages, as well as hot and ambient filled beverages — all while lowering energy, water, chemical and raw material consumption.” — Tommaso Tegoni, product manager for filling at Sidel
“On the alcoholic beverage side, we are supporting craft breweries and hard seltzer producers who wish to further differentiate and meet new consumers’ demands,” he continues. “These beverage trends are impacting the requirements for equipment to produce and accommodate high levels of food safety, improved performance and flexibility to ensure can filling of varying sizes.”
Barry Fenske, technical sales of the filling division at Krones Inc., Franklin, Wis., notes that with more sensitive beverages moving to cans, this trend is having a major impact on can filling and seaming.
“More sensitive beverages are moving into cans, such as beverages that normally are packaged by aseptic PET lines,” he explains. “Thus, an aseptic can filler/seamer will need to be explored. The issue is making the seamer aseptic, which is a tall challenge.”
Alongside increased market demand for a variety of container sizes, experts highlight how increased SKUs are creating greater need for equipment adaptability.
“SKU proliferation has accelerated the need for an improvement in automation and changeover capabilities, which has become essential for the latest filling and seaming equipment,” Sidel’s Tegoni explains. “Equipment now needs to perform changeovers in minimal time while handling carbonated and still beverages, as well as hot and ambient filled beverages — all while lowering energy, water, chemical and raw material consumption.”
Krones’ Fenske points to equipment designed with flexibility into the filler as critical to addressing SKU proliferation because it allows the running of several product types on the same filler.
“There are machines that can run carbonated or noncarbonated beverages, hot or cold fill — all on one machine, such as our Modulfill VFJ-C — Krones,” he says. “With a filler/seamer bloc needing to be flexible, changeovers can be impacted, especially at the seamer when there is a lid diameter change. This is especially applicable to co-packers.
“Also for can filling, it is becoming more popular to discuss having two seamers in a block to one can filler to help with changeover times for lid diameter changes,” Fenske continues. “Handling parts on the fillers are a quick change. Separate recipes in the PLC for each SKU, brought up for that SKU at the touch of a button so that very little fine tuning is required after changing to another.”
Designed with brewers and carbonated soft drinks (CSD) manufacturers’ needs in mind, Sidel’s EvoFILL Can filler is able to improve beverage quality, maximize performance and expand flexibility, Tegoni explains.
“This filler has the capacity to fill CSD at ambient temperature and still drinks in hot fill, thus accommodating a wide range of beverages via a single piece of equipment,” Tegoni says.