BLOC-synchronised stretch blow-moulding machine for fresh-milk bottling

The Latteria Soresina dairy in northern Italy is tapping into an entirely new market segment by bottling milk in PET. Latteria Soresina’s product portfolio includes not only cheese, but also around 2,300 tons of butter and 25 million litres of carton-packed UHT milk a year. For the first time, Latteria Soresina is offering fresh milk in 1-litre PET containers, with a production quantity of 10 million litres scheduled for 2008.
Latteria Soresina has installed a blow-moulder/filler BLOC comprising a Contiform S8 stretch blow-moulding machine and a Volumetic VODM-PET filler. The BLOC is completely enclosed, with the freshly blow-moulded 1-litre PET containers being transported from the Contiform to the filler in neck-handling mode through an enclosed tunnel. BLOC-synchronising the stretch blow-moulding machine with the filler enables a high standard of hygiene to be assured, an essential consideration in milk processing operations.
Design details in the Contiform series permit very long process times during production of the PET bottles, due not least to the use of aluminium mould carriers and optimal positioning of the blowing valves near the blow nozzle, reducing the air consumption and thus cutting the energy costs involved. In addition, the Air Wizard Modules 1 and 2 integrated as a standard feature help to downsize energy consumption by reducing both the volume of dead space and the final blow-moulding pressure.
Latteria Soresina additionally had the Air Wizard Module 3 installed, enabling superfluous final blow-moulding air to be recovered and fed back to the compressor. This in turn enabled the compressor to be dimensioned one size smaller, thus cutting the capital investment and operating costs involved.
The entire line is currently bottling around 35,000 litres a day, six days a week.