Energy drink maker triples production capacity

Energy drink maker Hell Energy had its origins in its home country of Hungary in 2006 and is now claimed to be one of the top three energy drink brands worldwide.

To meet the steadily rising demand for its energy drinks and carbonated soft drinks, the company has been investing in new equipment, including two high-speed canning lines from Krones.

Barnabás Csereklye, Managing Director of Hell Energy, said the two high-speed can filling lines from Krones were put into operation in 2018 and 2019.

“Until then, our capacity for filling cans was just under 100,000 containers per hour, not nearly enough to cover demand. So we decided to expand our production capacity — and we more than tripled it,” Csereklye said.

Hell Energy worker monitoring products.

Each of the two new Krones lines processes 120,000 cans per hour and both are already operating at full capacity, around the clock, in four shifts.

“High speed and automation are key to our ability to meet the growing demand for our products,” Csereklye said.

While one of the two lines is dedicated exclusively to 250 mL slim cans for Hell Classic energy drink, the second fills all of Hell’s other energy drinks, carbonated soft drinks and XIXO brand iced teas into three different can sizes.

The two new lines are configured identically. Besides various inspection systems for empty and full cans and a Contiflow mixer, each line contains a 175-head Modulfill VFS-C filler.

Pasteuriser instead of preservatives

To ensure the highest level of safety for all products, all Hell Energy cans — energy drinks and iced teas alike — are treated in a double-deck LinaFlex pasteuriser.

Csereklye said the company pasteurises all its beverages to ensure stability.

“We don’t use preservatives, artificial sweeteners or aspartame. We use only the best natural ingredients like real granulated sugar or stevia, coffee extract and milk — and vitamins,” he said.

Hell Energy relies on a Variopac Pro for packing. Grouping and palletising are handled by a Pressant PalBloc consisting of a Robobox and a Pressant Universal that builds up to 580 layers per hour. SitePilot Line Diagnostics monitor the entire production line.

Krones Robobox inside the Hell Energy facility.

When investing in new equipment, Hell Energy said it looks for the most modern and most efficient technologies available.

“We need to deliver a lot of product, so high efficiency, low spoilage and excellent reliability are crucial. And of course, we do not want to cut corners when it comes to quality,” Csereklye said.

“That’s why we chose Krones. Our many years of good partnership spoke for themselves — and it was already clear during the installation and commissioning phase that we had made the right choice. We were and still are very satisfied. Krones has definitely met our expectations.”

All images supplied by Krones.