Typically Swiss
It’s no surprise to learn that Coca-Cola is
the most popular carbonated soft drink
in Switzerland, but I bet there aren’t many
people who’d be able to correctly guess the
runner-up.
It’s Rivella, a health-promoting drink that
uses the clear milk product lactoserum, containing
lactose, lactic acid and minerals. It
gives a distinctive taste that the Swiss love,
but one that has found limited favour further
afield. Test marketing in the UK and the USA
(Florida) was not a success.
Rivella’s other line is for Michel, its range
of fruit juices, that recently benefited from a
CHF 16 million (US$13.3 million) investment
in a new aseptic cold filling PET bottling line,
a key component of which is the latest
Nitrodose liquid nitrogen (LN2) injection system
from Vacuum Barrier Systems (VBS), the
European company that distributes Vacuum
Barrier Corporation (VBC) equipment in
Europe.
It’s a big investment, and one that demonstrates
the typically far-sighted Swiss
approach to business, since it comes at a time
when Rivella’s group chief executive Franz
Rieder describes the market as “stagnating”.
This translates into a 3 percent drop in home
sales and tougher conditions abroad, as we
have seen.
“Far sighted” and undoubtedly confident
they may be, but what exactly was it that
made Rivella abandon hot filling for the latest
in an aseptic bottling line featuring LN2
injection?
Besides a more gentle filling process of
the fruit juices, which positively impacts taste
and quality, we wanted to make our production
more efficient thanks the possibilities
of this new filling line, which can be used
for both carbonated and non-carbonated
drinks,” said Assistant Engineering Director
Marc Taschi.
The ‘old’ hot-filled product meant thicker
walled PET bottles to maintain rigidity.
“This is very expensive,” said Taschi. “We
were using a three-layer PET bottle — the
inner layer was EVOH nylon — and we wanted
to reduce our costs as much as possible.”
Using thinner-walled, lighter, PET bottles
can save several grammes per unit.
Taschi also had his eyes on the future costs
of PET and with the typically Swiss eye for
the long term, was concerned at the costs of
oil-based products in an increasing unstable
petroleum market. “Resin costs may be relatively
stable now,” he said, “but there will
be future increases.”
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Reprinted from The Filling Business © January 2007 |
