The FFS that has conquered China
The Sacmi Dairy Division sells the speediest of the Benco Pack aseptic FFS to a big Chinese dairy producer, equipping it with new sterile dosers with flowmeters.
Sacmi combines in its Dairy Division all the experience built up in the milk sector and is enjoying its first successes on the global market. Starting from the Far East: one of the main Chinese companies in the dairy sector intends doubling their hourly production output of coffee creamers for the local Chinese market, by ordering a Miniasepack/40 aseptic Form-Fill-Seal machine able to produce 10ml and 15ml mini-portions of coffee creamers at a rate of 72,000 cups per hour. According to company estimates, this is the fastest horizontal aseptic FFS machine ever supplied to any company in China to date. It also carries out the total sterilization of the packaging materials in hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) baths at a concentration of 35%. Hydrogen peroxide has the advantage of being a powerful disinfectant that decomposes to oxygen and water and leaves no residue in the container, thus avoiding any possible problem of contamination or deterioration of the creamer.
Sterilizing in several steps
The Chinese user chose a Miniasepack/40 because it is a fully aseptic packaging line for both dairy and non-dairy UHT cream products and the machine carries out sterilization process at various stages of the packaging process. Rather, it begins before the packaging cycle, automatically steam-sterilizing the filling unit and all the parts that come into contact with the product, as well as the air filters and the packaging tunnel. The pre-sterilization is achieved with the easily produced H2O2 mist.
Hence the Miniasepack/40 emits sterile air in the feeding tank and along the aseptic tunnel, where the heating, forming, filling and film edge pre-sealing takes place, to prevent contamination. Temperature controlled steam barriers protect the mechanical drives in the aseptic tunnel.
The packaging materials are in turn sterilized prior to entering the sterile filling zone where an aseptic filling unit operates (both already sterilised), in a H2O2 baths (35% concentration) at a constant temperature of 50°C to 55°C. After this treatment, a series of mechanical dryers blow sterile air and infrared ray lamps completely remove any H2O2 or its derivatives from both films after sterilization, leaving water as the sole residue, as hydrogen peroxide decomposes to water and oxygen when heated.
The cup lids in turn are sealed and cut outside the sterile zone because the pre-sealing of the two films ensures that the inside of the cup, and therefore the product, is completely isolated from the external environment.
Particularly important: the Miniasepack/40 model bought by the Chinese customer will be supplied with the newly developed aseptic filler named MiniFluxa, the new-concept flow-meter filler suitable for dosing small portions of cream, from 5 to 25 millilitres of product at a production speed ranging of 72.000 cups per hour. With this development, Benco Pack has taken yet another step along the road of horizontal Form-Fill-Seal technological improvement, to the benefit of both well established and new potential customers.
The simplicity factor
Among the secrets behind the Miniasepack/40 is its simplicity: a key factor when working in aseptic conditions as it reduces to the minimum the number of parts in contact with the products, thus making the aseptic packaging process easier.
Furthermore, this new concept of sterile filling unit with flowmeter minimises machine component wear, simplifying maintenance procedures and ensuring accurate dosing.
It also enables the possibility of varying product quantity directly via the control panel and sample-monitoring the amount filled by each individual nozzles so as to test, directly on line, the precision of the dosing unit.
The reason for this choice has been illustrated by Luca Nanetti – newly appointed Manager of SACMI Dairy Division since January 1st, 2013: «We haven’t invented anything, we simply complied with the market’s increasing request for highly automated equipment, combining easy operation and increased efficiency, production speed and noise-reduction.
This is the recipe that helped our Division increase our leadership position as a leader in the global FFS packaging world, and maintain its technological breakthrough towards some of the main competitors, especially in aseptic filling of dairy products».
Sacmi Daiy has won a name for itself in the dairy market thanks to a knowhow that sums up the best of Sacmi technology in processing plastics with the expertise of the Group as a provider of integrated beverage solutions.
Investments over the last years in R&D have enabled Benco Pack to achieve a completely automatic aseptic packaging machine with new generation devices, now on the way to one of the biggest dairy producers of all Asia.
