Page 45 - Food&Drink magazine April-May 2023

The basic production sequence is just the same as in a conventional ErgoBloc L. But the individual machines have some key differences.
The filler posed the biggest challenge for the development team, because there are physical limits to the standard approach of “bigger carousel equals higher output”.
At some point, the masses to be moved, and the forces acting on them, simply get too big to reliably maintain a stable process. Even though these forces might not be sufficient to set the filler itself shaking, they would certainly cause the product to slop over.
To prevent this, the block features two modularised filling units and two modularised cappers, which are still constituent parts of a single integrated block with just one valve rack and one sorting system for closures.
When compared to a 72,000-bph block built in 2015, more than 16 per cent in energy savings were achieved. As a result, the TCO is up and Scope-2 emissions are down.
SUSTAINABILITY AND PET – A CONTRADICTION?
In 2021, there was more than 533 billion PET bottles produced for alcoholic, non-alcoholic, and dairy beverages. That is expected to exceed 600 billion by 2025.
What is often forgotten is that PET can be sustainable if the materials are produced in a resource-conserving manner and kept in a closed cycle.
Companies like Krones
already offer options, starting with material-saving container design, through low-energy container production, and right up to the recycling of used plastics with, for example, the MetaPure recycling systems for PET and polyolefins.
Other ways to reduce CO2 emissions includes light weighting PET bottles. A Krones customer saved about four per cent in bottle weight, entirely without reducing production performance. It also cut costs due to using less materials and saved the customer 720 tonnes of CO2 annually.
Furthermore, the use of rPET still offers the biggest opportunity to save CO2.
If 100 per cent recyclate is used on the 100,000-bph ErgoBloc, up to 3,600 tonnes of CO2 per year can be saved.
Secondary packaging also offers opportunities to make material savings and reduce emissions. For example, LitePac Top – sustainable cardboard clips for cans and disposable PET bottles – are made of renewable raw materials and are 100 per cent recyclable. Despite the minimalist use of materials, the container is stable, comfortable to carry, and convenient to remove.
There there is no “one solution for everything”. Many individual components create the big picture.
Potential savings on the way to sustainable production must always be considered on a customer-specific basis.
Every small adjustment screw that is turned contributes to the bottom line. ✷
BEVERAGE PRODUCTION
MAIN: Krones developed a wet-end block to with an output of 100,000 500ml water bottles per hour.
BELOW LEFT: LitePac Tops are sustainable cardboard clips for cans and disposable PET bottles, made of renewable raw materials and 100 per cent recyclable.
BELOW RIGHT: Krones designed a filler with two modularised filling units and cappers to deliver significant energy savings.
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www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | April/May 2023 | Food&Drink business | 45