Rapid development of hot-filled tea beverages

Bottled tea beverages and fruit juice beverages occupy an increasingly important position in the Chinese beverage market. In recent years, the sales volume has increased rapidly. Many domestic beverage manufacturers have begun to adopt the most advanced filling technology in Europe, especially reliable and consumer-friendly. Hot filling production line.

Hangzhou Wahaha Group, Zhejiang Qiandao Lake Yangshengtang, Coca-Cola China, and Yanjing Beer are among the leaders. These companies ordered hot fill lines with Krones last year. These lines were installed last year or this year, at speeds between 20,000 and 48,000 bph. Krones is responsible for all turnkey projects.

Novel but successful packaging form: PET bottle

Historically, China has long had a habit of drinking tea. Chinese people always like to choose tea as their preferred drink, whether they are at home, work or leisure. They take the tea around and use glass bottles, plastic cups or heat-resistant bottles as containers and drink hot tea.

Today, consumers buy tea beverages in PET bottles in supermarkets. This packaged beverage offers great convenience. Therefore, the hot filling technology of green tea, black tea, fruit tea or ice tea is increasingly important. Tea beverages have become the biggest opportunity for the introduction of hot filling technology.

The shelf life of canned drinks can be extended by heating. This process is ideal for non-carbonated juices, coffee, tea and beans. High-temperature filling kills the harmful microorganisms in the beverage and destroys the activity of the enzyme, so no preservatives need to be added to the beverage.

Bottles and caps do not need to be specially disinfected because they are sterilized by high-temperature products. The hot filling process itself is very reliable and easy to handle.

Friendly is an important factor

Chinese beverage manufacturers value the quality of their products. Hot filling lines must have a constant high temperature. After the filling process is completed, the beverage bottle must enter the disinfecting device as soon as possible and then enter the cooling device to minimize the bottle pressure caused by the high temperature.

In the cooling device, the temperature control is also very important, otherwise it will cause the Plastic Bottle deformation.

Some beverage makers additionally add a heat retention step next to the cooling unit. This will not only relieve the pressure on the bottle but also disinfect the bottle cap.

Two options: quality filling or volume filling

Different beverage vendors have different options when choosing a filling line, but their goals are the same.

For example, Wahaha Group, Coca Cola and Yanjing Beer chose the Sensometic VPGL Long Tube Quality Filling System. The product is poured from the bottom of the bottle through a long pipe. The remaining air in the bottle is squeezed through the mouth or exhaust system. Once the filling level is reached, the detector outside the filling tube sends a signal to close the valve system: A certain amount of product in the filling tube enters the bottle.

If the equipment malfunctions or the UHT system accelerates, the beverage will still maintain a fixed temperature, which is achieved by an ultra-high-temperature heating system that does not change in temperature above 128 degrees Celsius.

Hyosung chose the Volumetic VODM-L hot filling system. Capacity filling uses flow meters to precisely control the filling capacity. At the same time, the bottom filling prevents the remnants of oxygen and foam that may occur during filling.

These beverage makers use precise PET filling systems. PET bottles are fed directly through air conveyors, and the bottle necks send the bottles one by one to the bottle washing device, the filling head and the capping device. Switching between different sizes of bottles requires only one star wheel to be installed without any tools.

Hot filling makes the product recyclable and also has high requirements for the sealing material of the filling system. Sealing materials not only have to withstand high pressures from beverages, but some are even acidic. The quality of the inner surface of the sealing material is also very high, otherwise it will cause high-temperature beverages to be destroyed between liquid and gaseous states. All filling heads must have a circular internal injection function to avoid filling residues.

In addition to the hot filling system, Wahaha also requires a cold filling system for filling drinking water. The cold filling system is more hygienic and requires a closed clean room and an H-13 filter fan.

Different PET bottle feeding systems

All filling systems are equipped with a capping device that can handle different plastic caps, and some can even complete moving caps. The bottle washing device is a unified double-channel Variojet model, which uses chlorine water and disinfectant water to clean PET bottles.

The PET bottle feeding systems selected by these beverage manufacturers are also different. Coca-Cola and Yang Sheng Tang chose to blow bottles online; Wahaha processed the bottles in advance, stored the bottles in the transfer magazine, and fed the bottles into the filling system through an automatic stacker.

Yanjing Beer also uses automatic stackers. Their PET bottles are also outsourced. Coca-Cola also chose the transit storage bin to store the remaining PET bottles processed by the blow molding machine. It also has a Kettner empty bottle stacking/unstacking device. The conveyor belts for feeding and unloading are arranged up and down to keep the direction of air transport unchanged.

The empty bottles were placed on pallets from an air conveyor belt 2.8 meters high, while the bottles in the transfer boxes were brought into the air conveyor belt at a height of 4.8 meters. Coca-Cola was the first company to use this system for depalletizing, and the applicable bottle size can be from 28mm to 38mm.

Post-order packaging

The labeling in PET bottles eased, Coca-Cola used the Sleevematic DS labeling machine, and Yanjing chose Sleevematic AF. Both systems send PET bottles into a steam tunnel and shrink the labels according to the outline of the bottle.

At the packaging terminal, different beverage vendors also have their own ideas. The Wahaha Group fills bottles in folding carton boxes and completes them with a cartoner, cartoner and cartoner. Yuen Tang uses Wrapapac W-wrapping to pack together 3x5 or 4x6 bottles. Yanjing also chose Wrapapac, which is a WTS model of 53 times per minute. This type of equipment can also complete tray (T) and shrink film packaging (S).

Coca-Cola's packaging is very diverse. There are many specifications for PET bottles, including 350ml, 500ml, 1.5L and 2L. The company also installed Wrapapac WT and VariopacPFS. Variopac completes shrink packaging for all sizes of PET at speeds over 90 packs/minute. The WT model is the fastest in Wrapapac and can handle three groups of packages at the same time, facilitating the adjustment of processes such as downstream stacking.

Some bottle packs that have finished shrinking packaging enter the Wrapapac device and are placed on the tray. In addition, Wrapapac is also responsible for packing scattered products into cartons. Coca-Cola, Yanjing, and the unified system can automate stacking, and Wahaha and Yangshengtang are completed by hand.

The Krones provided these lines with CIP systems. Users can regularly set the system for cleaning by programming. At present, more and more Chinese drinkers use CIP automation.

Green future

Since Wahaha Group installed the first and second hot-filling assembly lines in the Chinese market in 2001, the number of orders in 2002 increased to five. This figure shows that the hot-filled drinks in the Chinese market have become popular.

The Wahaha Group was very satisfied with the two assembly lines and added two more 20,000 bph hot-filled tea beverage lines.

Coca-Cola Company installed two 15,000 bph carbonated beverage cold filling lines in 1996 and 1999 respectively, and added a 30,000 bph cold filling line last year. The latest installation is this 48,000bph hot filling line. It is worth mentioning that the three cold filling lines have made preparations for hot filling.

Krones long-term partner Yangshengdo has several washing/filling systems and complete lines, and the newly installed hot-filling line speed is 36,000 bph.

The traditional beer company Yanjing started to enter the soft drinks industry in October last year. The company selected tea drinks as an entry point, followed by juice drinks.

It is worth paying attention that all Chinese carbonated beverage manufacturers who are accustomed to cold filling are slowly leaning towards hot-filling technology. Bottled tea beverages, sports drinks and fruit juice beverages will get a bigger sky in the Chinese market.