Krones’ FlexiFruit pre-dosing system

To enable juices consisting of sacs, fibres, fruit chunks or pulp to be filled as gently as possible, Krones separates the juice from the fruit content itself, both in the process engineering for thermal treatment and in the filling technology downstream. To assist with the process, the company has created a pre-dosing filler called FlexiFruit for the fruit particle content before the actual juice-filling carousel in the main filler.

The purpose of the filling process is to run hot pre-dosing into the containers of a fruit-fibre or fruit-chunk mixture with a fruit content of around 50% in chunks measuring up to 10 x 10 x 10 mm in size and 50% juice, before the actual free-jet hot filler is reached. Up to now, piston fillers have mostly been used for this purpose; the trouble is that they are not able to be cleaned in place, or not completely. Post-dripping may impair the accuracy of the dosing function, which is why the company has developed a simple, hygienic system that’s easy to clean; one that, if at all possible, no longer drips after dosing. A solution featuring diaphragm valves was chosen, which offers the additional benefit of minimising the damage rate.

One of the system’s major advantages is that the dosing filler itself does not need to possess an additional measuring instrument. What happens is that the entire fill quantity is measured in the downstream weighing-cell filler, where the juice without any fruit cells is bottled. High priority was also given to ensuring operator-friendly maintenance. By developing the FlexiFruit pre-dosing system, Krones has closed the circuit required for holistically gentle production of beverages with a fruit-chunk content.