A juicy technology

A truly successful partnership between B&G and Acma, totally “made-in-Italy”: a three block  integrated system that includes blower, filler and a multiple capping unit capable of handling up to 10 containers different in terms of format and materials.

B&G produces and distributes lemon juice under the name of “Limmi”. The company was founded in Perugia in 1994; from the very start, its main focus was that of offering top quality products, using the very best juice of Sicilian lemons, known to be the best worldwide. The company also invests in developing innovative containers that are both practical for end users and that preserve the product’s quality over time.
B&G has a widespread distribution network, meaning it is able to serve all the main chain stores. Today, the company detains 50% of the Italian market share and exports to 25 nations, namely France (another country that is remarkably quality-oriented), Germany and East Europe. B&G focuses with great interest also on markets of the Far East, mainly in China and Japan, but also countries of the Mediterranean area too.
To satisfy a constantly growing production process (forecasts for this year envisage a rise in turnover of about 10-15 %), the company from Perugia has decided to invest in a new line that covers the filling and bottling phases of the famous lemon juice and has decided to entrust the project to Acma’s liquids division.

A complete solution. The solution offered by the company from Bologna – which has many years of expertise in the field of liquid foodstuffs – consists of an integrated 3-block system comprising the blowing machine, filling machine and a multiple capping unit. The mock lemon bottle, which comes in various shapes and sizes, is first cleaned by the blowing machine and subsequently transferred to the bottling station, where a constant filling flow is guaranteed by the Virtual Level System (VLS), designed for foamy or dense products.
The complexity of the container requires different solutions for the capping phase: a fundamentally important component is indeed applied, which acts as a product filter for the end user, thus preserving the juice’s freshness and zest, typical of top quality lemons.

For this purpose, Acma has come up with a system made up of three different capping systems in one synchronised unit; the first just fills bottles with a rather broad neck, by fitting an adaptor, while the second inserts an intermediate capsule within the portion of cap that remains in the container’s neck. The third system, on the other hand, applies “screw-on” caps, which may come in different shapes and materials, depending on the type of container to be filled.

The machine thus configured is indeed potentially able to process more than ten different containers (made of glass, PET and HDPE), ensuring incredibly fast size change-over’s and average production rate of over 9.000 bottles/hour.
Hygiene criteria (all the components that come into contact with the product are made of stainless steel type AISI 316L) and the use of a nitrogen batcher that intervenes in the filling phase, enable the use of smaller quantities of preservatives in the product: the project has consequently benefitted from funds of Umbria’s regional department that sponsors advanced industrial solutions in the packaging field of foodstuffs.

The solutions offered, backed by Acma’s outstanding engineering expertise, are based on the net weight filling principle: the most advanced technology that guarantees precision, top performance and maximum production hygiene.
The liquids division strives constantly to develop new technologies deriving from its recognised experience in kinematic (shapes and materials) and fluid dynamic (composition of the motion of fluids) studies in order to propose cutting-edge packaging/bottling solutions and complete turnkey lines.