Aseptic packaging provides an ideal solution for customers required to pack sensitive products. For Sidel, this is traditionally in the form of liquid dairy products (LDP), or juices, nectars, soft drinks, isotonics and teas (JNSDIT). These are products that require high level of care in a packaging line, in order to preserve their organoleptic properties and extend their shelf-life.
Aseptic Technology is a better match to Beverage Industry
The increase of healthy and nutritious product categories is perfectly suited to aseptic packaging. We are seeing an increase in recipe diversification in the markets for liquid dairy, and juices, nectars, soft drinks, isotonics and teas, many of which typically fall in the category of healthy beverages with no preservatives and natural formulations. Additionally, bottle formats and shapes, cap and label applications continue to vary strongly, contributing to the need for higher flexibility and for no compromises on line efficiency over time. It’s for these items that the aseptic production is ideally suited.
Designed to offer maximum safety and simplicity
Sidel’s unique PET aseptic filling solution with dry preform decontamination ensures product integrity, production flexibility, cost efficiency and sustainability. Since it is simpler to decontaminate the preform rather than the blown bottle, Sidel patented this unique technology – Sidel Predis™ – which uses hydrogen peroxide mist to sterilise the preforms. The same technology is used for cap decontamination with Sidel’s Capdis™. Sensitive drinks can be affected by various factors when they are packaged – micro-organisms, light, oxygen and temperature. When Sidel’s scientific expertise on beverage packaging and industrial production is involved early in a new product packaging project, producers can optimise bottle performance while ensuring product safety and quality. The result is reliable, simple and safe aseptic beverage production in PET bottles, ideal for products distributed at ambient temperature. Additionally, it can help to lengthen shelf life and reformulate more sensitive beverages that would otherwise need added preservatives to maintain food safety.
The Sidel Aseptic Combi Predis contributes to production simplicity and reliability, because a line with a small sterile zone and minimum critical factors is managed and maintained more safely, easily and effectively. The dry preform sterilization before the oven prevents re-contamination and avoids the need for blow moulder sterilization. It also eliminates the constraints related to the bottle shape’s complexity. Therefore, the solution is able to handle bottle formats from 200 ml to 3 L with any shape. For greater flexibility, format changeovers are easy and fast, taking only one minute per mould. In its latest generation – the Versatile Aseptic Combi Predis – the solution is even able to manage still beverages and carbonated soft drinks in PET on one piece of equipment.
Sidel’s aseptic lines benefit from over 50 years of experience working with customers in this field and combine the right PET bottle and packaging solution to ensure maximum product integrity along the supply chain, while also optimising uptime, costs and sustainability.
Global Leadership Role in Sensitive Beverages and Liquid Dairy Production
Equipped with dry preform and cap sterilization, the Sidel Aseptic Combi Predis is the market’s simplest and fastest solution for aseptic PET bottling, merging dry preform sterilization with aseptic blowing, filling and sealing functions within a single production system. It respects the fundamental concept which underpins state-of-the-art aseptic packaging rules: producing a commercially sterile product, filled in a sterile zone in a sterilized package. Differing from traditional aseptic technologies, the package sterilization takes place at the preform stage, rather than during the bottling phase.
Beyond simplicity and safety, the dry preform sterilization technology of the Aseptic Combi Predis does not require any water and uses only minimal amounts of chemicals in the production process. The H2O2 ensures a high level of decontamination, minimizing the sterile zone and controlling all risk of potential contamination, while continuously monitoring critical parameters for full sterility throughout the whole production process, beverage integrity and food safety. More than 160 Aseptic Combi Predis references worldwide supplied to major sensitive products players are a clear endorsement of this technology.
In 2017, Sidel has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its Aseptic Combi Predis™ FMa blow fill seal filler following tests run at a dairy customer in North America. This means that the Sidel Aseptic Combi Predis FMa PET filler is validated for low acid manufacturing and commercial distribution in the United States market. The Sidel Aseptic blow fill seal solution is the world’s first aseptic PET filling equipment with dry preform sterilisation approved by FDA.
“With the world’s first FDA-approved aseptic solution with dry preform sterilisation on the market, Sidel has been enjoying a continuously growing global leadership role in sensitive beverages and liquid dairy production technology. The high level of customer acceptance and the many repeat orders are due to the fact that our patented system is 100% safe and simple for the packaging of low acid sensitive products in PET bottles, sold through ambient chain. We are very proud of this big success,” says Rahul Singhal, Sales Head, South Asia.