Foodmach to supply new filling line for 4 Pines

Packaging automation manufacturer and integrator Foodmach has been appointed as the supplier for 4 Pines Brewing Company’s new filling line at its brewery in Brookvale on Sydney’s northern beaches. Due to commence operation in September 2020, the line upgrade will enable the Brookvale facility to package bottles and cans.

Chris Willcock, Chief Brewer, 4 Pines Brewing Company, said: “Cans are an increasingly relevant section of the craft beer market and the beer market in general. They’re a vessel very well suited to a variety of drinking occasions and something we really needed to provide to our customers alongside our diverse range of bottled beer products. The challenge at Brookvale has been our restricted space, which makes it impossible to build a second pack line exclusively for standard and sleek can filling. Off-site filling was an option, but it’s expensive and elevates our risk of problems with product quality.

“In addition, we take our use of resources very seriously. Whatever filling line solution we came up with needed to reduce our water and power consumption.”

Taking space constraints into consideration, as well as the 4 Pines sustainability ethos and quality requirements and its desire to produce innovative product and packaging, Foodmach recommended the GEA Vipoll ALL IN ONE filler.

A combined rinser/filler/capper/seamer in a single monoblock, the ALL IN ONE can accommodate both carbonated and still beverages — either hot or cold filling — and fills glass, PET and cans in multiple formats, at up to 30,000 containers per hour. The ALL IN ONE has the potential to reduce the energy used in bottling and canning beer and reduce water use.

Foodmach has designed a medium-speed packaging line around the filler, which includes a new Foodmach bottle/can depalletiser, traceability and inspection systems, conveying and a line control system to link all existing and new equipment.

Foodmach CEO Earle Roberts said: “We use our experience from working with high-speed bottling and canning lines at 2000 cans per minute to ensure that we get the buffering and accumulation right on any speed line. We’ve designed 4 Pines Brookvale to minimise those short delays and bottlenecks that will otherwise reduce throughput.”

Foodmach will install the custom-specified GEA Vipoll ALL IN ONE filler and new filling line in September 2020.