Page 31 - Food & Drink Business August 2018

TAPPING into the nation’s growing thirst for delicious dairy drinks has helped Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) slash 16,000 truck movements per year with the introduction of state-of-the-art bottling and distribution technology to its Richlands facility.
The manufacturing giant announced the $165 million upgrade of its Queensland site earlier this year, as it rolled out a high-tech extension to the dairy processing line and almost doubled its bottling capacity.
As the primary supply point for all flavoured dairy products, the facility is the home of the Barista Bros Café Creations, a range of flavoured milks with reduced sugar content.
Milk consumed as a beverage is increasing in popularity, and ranked only second to water in 2016 among the fastest growing beverage categories in Australia, according to market researcher Colmar Brunton.
In line with this trend, the new indulgent Café Creations were developed for those seeking lower sugar products without sacrificing taste and flavour, says CCA Australia supply chain director David Grant.
Each drink in this range contains less than 8 grams of sugar per 100 ml serve, and the three new flavours on offer are Toffee Almond Pana Cotta, Butterscotch Brownie and Dark Chocolate Fudge.
“The single dairy processing plant required a significant upgrade to handle the volume growth in this new range, and there is now also the built-in capability to introduce new dairy-based product lines that are yet to be created,” Grant says.
HIGH-SPEED BOTTLING
The redevelopment of the plant also offered an opportunity to add new glass filling lines, says Grant, picking up capacity shifted from a much older bottling line in its Adelaide plant, with additional labelling and secondary packaging capabilities.
“We are putting in a completely new high-speed bottling line to increase our capacity for beverage processing, which allows us to produce beverages that we couldn’t do
with the old system,” he says. “The line runs at 400 bottles
per minute, which is almost double the speed, depending on the size of the bottle.”
This upgrade includes the installation of a wet aseptic line to ensure that the products are handled and filled in line with the company’s quality requirements.
“The sterilisation process is ultra-high temperature, which allows for us to produce long shelf-life products that don’t need to be kept in the fridge,” says Grant.
This was made possible with the use of new technologies that combine direct and indirect steam sterilisation, with preforms for the new aseptic line provided by Amatil’s Packaging Services Division.
In addition to the new filling and packaging lines, the site’s services and syrup preparation is in the midst of a major revamp to boost its capabilities, including more capacity for blending, sterilisation, homogenisation,
refrigeration, steam generation, and power supply.
“We have increased bulk alcohol storage and added bulk juice storage on the site, which we did not have before, so we’ve had to make changes to the syrup room, and implement a new control system. This has significantly improved the automation of ingredient addition and because people are not moving around as much, has also allowed us to reduce manual handling, which delivers safety improvements.”
“We’ve also reduced waste by improving mixing and distribution of beverages to the lines, which impacts overall quality management,” Grant says.
BIG DATA BONUS
Another byproduct of the new technology was the ability to introduce monitoring systems on new product lines, to help manage the equipment.
Grant says these systems can collect meaningful line and
TOP: The CCA upgrade includes a high-tech extension to the dairy processing line.
ABOVE: One of the new indulgent Café Creations.
BEVERAGES
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | August 2018 | Food&Drink business | 31