16/06/14
Part of a complete line, the Sidel Combi was installed at the company's bottling plant at La Matanza as a high-tech solution for bottling family pack sizes, which are in great demand in Argentina at the moment.
At La Matanza, in the Greater Buenos Aires province in Argentina, Refres Now has one of the largest soft drinks production facilities in the world. The plant produces more than ten different leading products each day, bottling a total of over 3.5 million litres. The company's working relationship with Sidel, the leading global provider of PET solutions for liquid packaging, first began back in 2005 when Refres Now was originally founded. The recently installed complete line features a Sidel Combi Eurotronica FMc and a Sidel Starblend mixer. The line is presently achieving impressive production output rates of 30,000 bottles per hour for the larger two and a half litre bottles of carbonated soft drinks.
The Combi is equipped with 20 blow
moulding stations, 162 electronic flowmeter filling valves and 18
capping heads. Brushless motors and an interface between
blowing and filling functions contribute to energy savings and
improved security. Through careful and precise control of the
caps before the machine, the correct orientation and process
quality are both assured to minimise problems and waste in the
capper. Even for an organisation as big as Refres Now, the
installation of the Sidel Combi Eurotronica line was a huge
investment and it was one that is now seen to have paid off.
As the company is also experiencing a comparative 17% saving in the
use of electricity on the line, Refres Now is delighted with this
performance and with the increased bottle base stability they have
achieved, in addition to a better distribution of material.
These higher quality bottles are therefore now better suited to
withstanding the pressures of transportation and handling
throughout the entire supply chain. This avoids any costly bottle
deformities which may be generated by the increased internal
pressure of the carbonated drinks' bottles resulting from the
ambient conditions experienced in Argentina: temperatures can
reach up to 45°C with humidity levels climbing to 78%.
The success of the world's largest Sidel Combi, has
resulted in Refres Now viewing Sidel as a strategic partner in its
bottling efforts. More than ever the Argentinian company is
determined to take advantage of the very latest technology.
So the company owners, Orlando and Walter Canido, recently visited
several Sidel production sites in Europe to witness for themselves
the Sidel Matrix™ system in operation. They visited sites in
France and Italy to explore its potential and saw first-hand how
the latest technology from Sidel can transform production. As
a result, Refres Now is considering how best to employ this
cutting-edge technology and is collaborating closely with Sidel in
order to maintain its position at the forefront of the Argentinian
domestic market.
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