Creating value from concept to customer
At five packaging centres and four in-house R&D laboratories around the world, Sidel aims to create value in every phase of the supply chain. Based on the customer's individual specifications, supply chain conditions and product goals, Sidel designers provide everything to turn a producer's wish from idea to reality, creating innovative packaging to protect beverage quality and give the finished product a memorable and differentiating look. Those packaging solutions maintain optimum line performance using less material and energy, yet increasing product shelf life and always delivering a great consumer experience. Every year Sidel works on more than 250,000 new bottle concepts and 8,000 bottle designs.For new lines and the conversion of existing lines, the Sidel moulds for these bottles are designed for fast production and optimal performance. Made from quality aluminium or stainless steel and tested using real-world mechanical analysis and virtual stress simulations for maximum uptime, they are engineered to last. The moulds offer great freedom of design with fast, easy changeovers - and can be adapted to all generations of the company's blowers.
Scientifically proven dry aseptic solution
Sidel's unique PET aseptic filling solution with dry preform decontamination ensures product integrity, production flexibility, cost efficiency and sustainability. Based on the obvious fact that it is simpler to decontaminate the preform rather than the blown bottle, Sidel patented this unique technology - Sidel Predis - which uses hydrogen peroxide mist to sterilise the preforms. Injected into the preforms just before they enter the oven, the peroxide mist is activated during the existing preform heating stage. The same technology is used for cap decontamination with Sidel's Capdis. "By integrating preform decontamination, blowing and filling functions with cap decontamination in a single enclosure, the Sidel aseptic Combi Predis ensures a completely sterile filled and capped PET bottle with a 100% dry aseptic solution", explains Rolland.To ensure food safety on a line, it should be simple, because a line with few critical factors is managed more easily and effectively. This is achieved by minimising the sterile zone to reduce risk of contamination, continuously monitoring critical parameters and controlling potential contamination. This process ensures a high level of decontamination up to a Sterility Assurance Level (SAL) of Log 6, without need for blow moulder sterilisation. This aseptic Combi Predis uses membrane-free magnetic filling for safe, hygienic filling with flow meter control for high accuracy. It is also easy to operate and maintain.
The end result is reliable, simple aseptic beverage production in PET bottles, ideal for products distributed at ambient temperature. Additionally, it can help to lengthen shelf life and reformulate more sensitive beverages that would otherwise need added preservatives to maintain food safety. Suitable for aseptic production ranging from 10,000 to 60,000 bottles per hour, it can handle a broad variety of drinks (still beverages or products with pulps), including those with high or low acidity such as UHT milk and soy or yak milk. "Now with multiple installations throughout the world, the Sidel Combi Predis offers producers the simplest and fastest aseptic solution embedding dry preform decontamination. Compared to traditional aseptic filling systems, it ensures maximum cost-efficiency with the highest uptime", adds Rolland. By significantly reducing chemicals and not using any water to decontaminate the package, the savings can be substantial. It also contributes to extensive lightweighting possibilities to decrease the amount of PET used. It offers a potential output of up to 2,400 bottles per hour per mould, with a continuous aseptic run of 165 hours between cleaning and sterilisation cycles. Simple, fast and safe changeovers with limited manual intervention are possible with Bottle Switch, the tool-free system that reduces mould changeover times to 40 seconds each. Liquid changeovers require less downtime too, with only three hours cleaning and sterilisation between bottle-to-bottle production.
