High-quality canning line allows Heineken opportunity to scale up R&D beer output

A low-output filling line from Enterprise Tondelli is creating the conditions for developing new beers and new packaging prior to scaling up production using higher-speed equipment.

Heineken’s research and development (R&D) pilot plant at Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands houses a wide variety of equipment for brewing, testing and packaging future beers in different formats.   Here, Enterprise Tondelli has contributed several packaging projects, over the years, ranging from bottle filling to tunnel pasteurisation.

The latest system supplied by the company was a new canning facility rated at 1,500 cans per hour (cph). Part of the challenge was to achieve a high-quality result with such a low output that could then be scaled up for high speed production, it says. Space constraints were another limiting factor.

Cans are delivered to the plant as palletised stacks 2.8 m high. One of the equipment company’s stainless steel can depalletisers automatically removes interlayer cards and sweeps the cans on to a high-level conveyor. At this point, a can-rinser cleans the cans using ionised air to remove any static-held dust or other contamination.

The rotary can filler and seamer applies double CO₂ flushing before filling, and achieves on average less than 50 parts-per-billion oxygen pick up and low final dissolved oxygen (DO). Another important feature of the can filler, says the supplier, was the collection of all CO₂ exhausts. A special system was designed and fitted so that all gases could be disposed of safely rather than being discharged into the factory environment.

Manager of the facility Jan Pieter van Kempen says Heineken is happy with the result and with the low DO achieved. “We knew that it would be difficult to find a can filler/seamer of this small size that met our stringent performance criteria,” he says. “That’s why we approached Enterprise Tondelli for this.”

The equipment company says it has been working in the industry since 1977 and supplying machinery in over 40 countries. Other recent projects have included nitro beer canning, high-speed wine bottling and turnkey beer bottling. The company offers canning lines from 1,500 to 72,000 cph, bottling from 600 to 60,000 bph as well as kegging lines.

O1525 718288

www.enterprisetondelli.co.uk