Technology is increasingly developing; businesses are forced to improve themselves to compete with other companies. Investing in science and technology and actively equipping themselves with modern machinery and equipment becomes one of the prerequisites. The beverage industry, especially bottled beverages, is no exception. In this article, Tan Do Beverage will mention some modern machines indispensable in the bottled beverage production line.
There are many vital equipment in a production process of bottled drinks
Overview of the bottled water market
According to many retail systems, food and beverage are the two industries with the most stable growth in supermarkets. These are all industries that provide daily necessities and directly to consumers. A survey in 2015 showed that the bottled beverage market had reached nearly $170 billion, expected to grow by almost 10% by 2020. Water dominates with more than 35% of the total market share in this segment, while carbonated drinks reached about 22%. Bottled water will increase fastest as consumers tend to prefer drinking water as a source of energy. Euromonitor’s recent research also shows that the world bottled water market could nearly double to $319 billion in value by 2022. Specifically, the Asia-Pacific market will continue to lead the growth in the world, including Vietnam.
Read more: 3 Popular types of beverage bottles and their pros and cons
Bottled drinks production equipment
Bottled water is one of the indispensable necessities of modern life. The busier life is, the more people need health and quality products. Therefore, bottled water bottles were born to meet the increasing demand for clean water and soft drinks.
Should know: Why is the soft drink industry so profitable? An analysis
A bottled water production line is a line that automates the product forming process and brings you the purest and best quality drinks. The bottled water production line is designed according to each customer’s specific requirements, with each product with a variety of formulas and designs.
Operation rules
- Input:
- The input water source must be clean, and not contain too much dirt or harmful substances.
- The water bottles are imported from reputable suppliers and must not have any damage.
- Output: Output water must ensure quality for users.
Bottled Water Production Line
Water treatment system
Investors base on production scale to choose suitable water sources. Small establishments often select a source of tap water. In case of production in large volume, choose an underground well water source. Groundwater usually has stable quality, is convenient for treatment, and lower cost than other water sources. If lucky to find a good water source, the investor will save many costs and money later. It is better to choose a water source once than to maintain and maintain the system constantly.
The four most widely used water purification methods and systems include:
- Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration: In this system, water pressure forces water through a semi-permeable membrane. When water is forced against the surface of the reverse osmosis membrane, dissolved substances are repelled. Water molecules are diffused through the membrane molecule by molecule, forming purer water on the other side.
- Ultraviolet Water Sterilization and Filtration: The rays from the sun contain the UV spectrum used in Ultraviolet Water Treatment Systems – (at a much lower intensity). The frequency used to kill microorganisms is 254 nanometers (nm). UV lamps used in water treatment are to have the highest UV energy at this frequency.
- Filtration: At this system, water passes through one or more filters to remove turbidity, taste, color, iron or odor. Standard designs are removable media-tank systems or cartridge units. This process may include mechanical filters, adsorption, neutralization, and catalysis/oxidation.
- Distillation: Water is converted by heating to a vapor state. The vapor is cooled and condensed to a liquid form, and collected. Distilled water has been purified by going through one or more evaporation-concentration cycles and is essentially free of dissolved solids. However, this method is quite expensive and time-consuming, so it is not widely used in the bottled water production.
A water treatment system
Bottle Blow Moulding Machine
Bottle-blowing equipment is one of the most used plastic machinery up to the present time. There are two types of machines, automatic and semi-automatic, they have the same main parts as follows:
- Blowers: The types of machines available are very diverse. There are two blowers, four blowers or even six blowers.
- High-Pressure Compressor: A large amount of air enters and compresses at high pressure through this unit. The energy generated by the compressed air will be used to inflate the plastic billet.
- Refrigeration dryer: This type of dryer operates at low temperatures, used for drying and dehumidifying finished products.
- Air filter: Clean air is dried and filtered to remove dirt and oil to ensure the quality of the bottle.
- Air cooler: Consists of blades that generate a wind to cool the engine.
- Mold: Forming function for the finished bottle, with high strength and corrosion resistance.
- Other spare parts.
For the automatic plastic bottle blowing machine, an automated filling unit is also added.
A bottle blow molding machine
Water Filling Machine
Filling water into bottles is a time-consuming process that requires meeting strict food safety and hygiene criteria. For small and medium enterprises, it is only necessary to use semi-automatic filling machines with a capacity of 150-250 bottles of 500ml per hour. The standard structure of a water-filling machine includes components such as a frame, a filling head unit, a rinsing unit, etc.
The filling process usually consists of three stages:
- Stage 1: The water bottles will be cleaned thanks to the rinsing system before participating in the filling process. Empty bottles will be put into the conveyor belt and washed with a dedicated faucet system.
- Stage 2: After cleaning, these bottles will be taken to the filling machine system according to the pre-set capacity.
- Stage 3: The final step of this process is to close the lid and finalize the product, including labeling, packing, and putting it into storage. In addition, to ensure quality, products will be tested before being delivered to consumers.
A water filling machine
Labeling Machine
The automatic labeling machine is the most popular type in the market because most of the bottles that need to be labeled are cylindrical. This structure makes decal labeling easier and faster than when labeling conical bottles, square bottles or bottles with complex shapes that need an automatic labeling machine to shrink plastic film.
Labeling machine for round bottles includes:
- Machine structure from aluminum alloy and stainless steel
- Input product feeding conveyor system (can be integrated with the filling machine) take the product out after labeling. This system can be combined for stages on bottle screwing machine, date printer, QR printing code, carton packing machine, and strapping machine.
- Bottle rotation press for labeling includes a rotary motor and a control cylinder.
- Automatic label feeding cluster uses a stepper motor and a sensor for sensing label stop positions, an input product sensor for accurate label feeding and stopping. The intelligent control system calculates and adjusts function clusters to synchronize for a precise and sequential round bottle labeling process.
- Error control system with sensor detects when there is no bottle, bottles without labels, or torn labels.
A labeling machine
Palletizer
Currently, the number of houses that use the palletizer system is relatively small. Because for small and medium enterprises, the cost to design this system is high. Many factories choose only smart warehouses with conveyor equipment and lifting tables. The arrangement is still based on people. However, when using the palletizer system, managers are entirely assured of the operation. This machine system works continuously, so there is almost no congestion of goods, and the storage area does not need too much. Palletizer also helps optimize the product coordination operation time, quickly gets the data in and out of the product, and is easy to manage.
Features of this palletizing system:
- Intelligent operation management;
- Reduce the number of employees and labor intensity;
- Widely applied in petrochemical, food, medicine, animal feed, grain, non-ferrous minerals and building materials.
- Use the gripper to open the door at the same time.
- Pallets are raised onto the enclosed stacking cage to be directly below the sliding doors, where individual layers are formed
- Sliding doors open to place layers on pallets
A palletizer system
Common problems in the bottled drinks production line
The beverage business faces several problems during the production of its bottled products. Among them, outdated production equipment and insufficient financial resources are the challenges many beverage businesses face, especially those new to the market.
Quality/Modern level of equipment
With the vigorous development of industry today, it can be seen that the machines in the production stage are increasingly upgraded and modernized. The higher the degree of modernization, the more productive enterprises will benefit when time, effort and costs are saved to the maximum extent. However, at the same time, not all businesses can update or upgrade their machines and equipment regularly. Not to mention, many new entrants in the market are very likely to buy old, damaged or low productivity machinery, affecting the overall product production line.
Financial problems
For new entrants to the market, financing is one of the biggest challenges facing. There are not enough resources for large-scale production, not enough finance to buy modern machinery and equipment, no capital to hire a lot of highly qualified and skilled human resources, etc. Therefore, it is not easy. It is easy for a newly established business to stand firm in the market, especially in a market with many strong competitors with large market shares.
However, newbies can consider cooperating with private label production partners to minimize costs and make the most of resources. Tan Do Beverage is one of these. At Tan Do Beverage, we also provide ODM (Beverage Private Label) and OEM (Beverage Co-Packer) services to support newbies from ideation, preparation and business stages.
Conclusion
In summary, the above article has mentioned the necessary equipment in the bottled water production line. The increasingly widespread application of modern equipment helps businesses minimize costs, resources as well as maximize profits.
Tan Do is a global beverage ODM/OEM manufacturer and supplier located in Vietnam. Since 1996, we have built trust and credibility not only throughout Vietnam but also in many parts of the world. Leveraging state-of-the-art technology, we have crafted thousands of products that align with ISO, HACCP, HALAL, FDA, and many other standards.
