Three Filling and Packaging Lines, One Turnkey Supplier

ONE of the largest breweries operating on the global beer market, SABMiller plc began operating in Russia in 1998 with the acquisition of an existing brewery in Kaluga, one of Russia's major industrial towns about 200 km southwest of Moscow. SABMiller RUS initially worked with the existing equipment was 0.5 million HL per year.  However, output soon threatened to outstrip capacity and SABMiller began its partnership with KHS on the Russian market with a glass line, canning line, keg line and Keg Boy by KHS.  Beer is also produced on an existing KHS glass line and PET line at the SABMiller RUS brewery in Vladivostok, Russia's major Pacific port, which was purchased three years ago.

SABMiller RUS' latest project is the construction of a greenfield brewery in Ulyanovsk in Central Russia, where it is investing in three KHS turnkey lines for glass, PET, and cans.
The brewer achieves 45% of its sales with international premium beer brands – about one third of all beer sales in the premium segment in Russia are credited to SABMiller RUS alone. Beer brands specially produced for the Russian market – "Zolotaya Bochka" (Golden Barrel), "Try Bogatyrya" (Three Knights) and "Essa", a mixed beer beverage flavoured with pineapple and grapefruit – complement the range of international premium beers.  Alongside national products, SABMiller RUS also offers consumers many regional products.

An Innofill DVF filling system with more than 126 filling stations

Multiple packaging formats

Glass bottles enjoy pride of place at SABMiller RUS; 55% of the beer bottled by the concern reaches consumers in glass.  Adam Gunn, technical director of SABMiller RUS, maintains, "We use only new glass in order to ensure our products have an immaculate appearance at the point of sale, which further underlines our claim to premium quality."

Cans are also of prime importance, as on the Russian market these are also accepted as containers for premium beers.  They account for 25% of total sales.  A further 15% comes from sales in PET bottles and 5% from beer sold in kegs. It was only recently that SABMiller RUS started to use larger PET bottles for filling.  To be more precise, the more sizeable containers entered production when a KHS PET line was commissioned for the new brewery at Ulyanovsk, with a capacity of 25,000 1.5Li PET bottles per hour.  Besides 1.5Li PET bottles, the line also processes 1Li and 3Li PET bottles.  "As far as PET bottles are concerned," says Mr Gunn, "we're collaborating with KHS expertise in both technology and the development of new PET beer bottles."

Monobloc system
Maximum benefit is what Mr Gunn also anticipates from using the InnoPET BloFill monobloc on the PET line.  This monobloc stretch blow moulder/filler/capper system is only the second InnoPET BloFill monobloc supplied worldwide – and the first monobloc concept to find application on the Russian market.  "We chose this technology because we saw the many advantages the system offers.  Moreover, in retrospect all the benefits we initially anticipated have materialised," he explains.

For example, the concept saves on both time and space for the air conveyor.  In addition, the PET bottles are handled more gently inside the monobloc.

An InnoPET Blomax 16 Series III is monobloc with the Innofill DVF filling system, which has more than 126 filling stations.  The bottom-uNike Air Max