On the right track for sensitive beverages

FOUR decades ago, Norda was founded by the Pessina family in Primaluna near Lake Como and is today Italy's sixth-biggest mineral water bottler with another three facilities. In its four production plants, Norda operates 15 bottling lines for water and soft drinks: nine for PET, five for glass, and one for large PET containers. The biggest plant continues to be Primaluna, with a capacity of 3.5 million containers a day. It is here that the most important brand, "Daggio", is bottled, a water bubbling up from what is still Europe's highest commercially utilised spring, at an elevation of around 6,400 feet. So logically enough, the firm's advertising claim goes "Where eagles dare, Norda is bottled". Further important brands in the portfolio are Acquachiara, Ducale, Luna, San Fermo and Lynx. In addition, Norda also produces dealer's brands for prestigious retailing chains like Italy's biggest food retailer Coop Italia.

This successful family firm is managed by president and founder Lino Pessina and his son, Carlo Pessina, as board chairman. In 2008, they tasked their newly appointed director general, Dr Giuseppe Dossena, with drawing up a long-term strategic plan.

Looking back on decades of experience in the food and soft drinks industries, Dr Dossena recommended entering the still-beverage market, with a three-year plan targeting the main categories of tea, beverages with fruit-juice content, and sports drinks, to be later on extended to include smoothies. To ensure bottling at a high level of qualitative excellence, an aseptic line had to be installed. "Hotfill was not a viable alternative for us," he explains. "It's true, of course, that aseptic lines require a higher initial investment and more stringent operator control while they're running, but the quality levels achieved are quite simply in a class of their own. We believe that the market is gravitating towards aseptics."

The complete PET-Asept line, rated at 18,000 containers an hour, was installed in July 2009 by Krones AG and had by December that very same year already been validated. "It gives us an annual capacity of an estimated 60 million bottles in three-shift operation, with high seasonal fluctuations for certain beverages already factored in. With a capacity utilisation of around 15 million bottles in the first year, we're already in pretty good shape, especially when you remember that all of the products involved are innovations," Dr Dossena said. "Our journey into aseptics is only just beginning, and we're very satisfied with it. We feel we're on the right track."

Blow-moulder/filler monobloc

Whilst the line was still in the planning phase, Krones, in close consultation with Norda, changed its layout to a blow-moulder/filler monobloc configuration, thus dispensing with air conveyors and reducing the risk of container recontamination still further. The Contiform S10 stretch blow-moulding machine can produce 38mm wide-neck bottles in sizes ranging from 180ml to 1.75Li.

The PET-Asept line has been validated for 72 hours of continuous running time, with an option for extending validation to 120 hours.  So far, the monobloc-synchronised Volumetic machine fills six different containers: 180, 190 and 500 millilitres, and 1.0 and 1.5 litres. "At present, we still have relatively frequent product changeovers on the line," said Dr Dossena. "Our aim is, of course, to fill the same product on three consecutive days, 700,000 bottles non-stop, as soon as market penetration permits."

After a buffer section, the following machines have been series-connected: a blow-dryer, a Sleevematic Inline with a downstream Unimodule featuring a Contiroll station, a Checkmat for moAir Jordan IV 4 Running Shoes