Unique bag filling beverage filling technology

Recently, Jel Sert installed a newly designed filling and capping machine, which is mainly used for the packaging of unique spouted bags for sports rehydration drinks.

Jel Sert, located in western Chicago, manufactures brands including FlavorAid and Mondo Fruit Squeezers. In less than a year, Jel Sert created a new brand of sports drink, Energice, in order to get involved in the sports drinks market.

However, Energice does not look like the existing sports rehydration drinks. Most of the existing sports drinks are packaged in transparent PET bottles, while Energice uses Kapak's unique spouted bags. To fill this unusually packaged beverage, Energice installed an innovative, interlocking filling and capping machine supplied by Hensen Packaging Concept with a packaging capacity of up to 250 bags/minute.

Energice's beverage packaging design was completed by Maddock Douglas, and the bag's anti-clogging cap assembly was supplied by Seaquist. This 500-millimeter vertical triangular bag is made from Kapak's equipment and laminated with polyester/aluminum foil.

The bag can drink without a straw. When flipping the entire package, only one layer of membrane is needed to stop the flow of liquid, but if the bag is squeezed, the liquid will flow out. According to Ingemi, deputy general manager of the Consumer Healthcare Department, “When conducting market tests, some of our customers believe that they are used to a way that PET bottles can be swallowed, but I promise that we only need this kind of packaging. By squeezing the bags, you can drink more than PET bottles. This is a patented design that is very different from Other bags that are inserted into straws and resealable bags."

Here we will simply introduce the equipment operation process to everyone.

1. The bag is transported to the Hensen device by hanging the neck of the cap device on the gripper. At this time, Kapak Company has already sealed Seaquist's capping device to the top of each bag. Finally, Jel Sert can use its own equipment to insert the cap assembly into the bag. At the end of the Hensen device there is an operator who puts each gripper that holds the bag on the conveyor belt, and the bag is transferred to the filling line. At this point, the star wheels hung one by one to carry the bag's gripper, and then pushed the already filled bag to the lower belt.

2. Unfilled bags rotate around the middle turret. The filling head is lowered for filling. Once the bag is filled, the star wheel rotates and transfers it to the lid device to complete the lid. Bags that have been filled and capped are usually circulated around the turret and dropped onto the conveyor belt to make room for unfilled and covered bags. This interlocking beverage filling device is ideal for beverage packaging. The workshop where the filling equipment was previously placed must be very clean, basically similar to the requirements of the factory building packaging pharmaceutical products. However, now, as long as the filling equipment is placed in a clean environment, it can be operated.

3. The bag filled with the filling and capping procedure is conveyed by a conveyor belt to a weighing device provided by Mettler Toledo. If the beverage bag is not of the correct weight, it is removed from the conveyor belt that was shipped to the box. The weighed drink bag was marked with a date code on Videojet's coding device, which was manually placed in an outer box and sealed with a carton sealer from Intertape Polymer. Finally, the carton was coded on top of another Videojet device.

The whole process is a very simple and flexible production process. The set of equipment can complete up to 250 bags/minute, but so far it has only reached 125 bags/minute. Therefore, to fully realize the production capacity of this equipment, we must also optimize downstream packaging operations.

Source: Huayin Media