Liquid foods

With the exception of spirits miniatures for advertising purposes, the primary packaging in this sector consists of glass or plastic bottles, and sometimes ceramic bottles, beverage cans and cartons (not covered here).

In addition, the packaging workshop must be adapted to the containers to be packaged, i.e. it must have the following characteristics:

• an enclosed area with utilities;

• floors specifically treated for this purpose;

• secure access ;

• machine safety ;

• appropriate soundproofing ;

• storage facilities.

The workshop where liquid food is packaged will be organized differently depending on whether the containers are large-volume (over one hectoliter), medium-volume (5 to 100 liters), or small-volume (under 5 liters).

In the second half of the last century, the field of small containers, and in particular bottles and cans, developed most strongly in two directions.

The first concerns operations which have only an indirect impact on the edible liquid, such as the transport of empty or full containers from one machine to another, the continuous control of containers during packaging, and the dressing of these packages.

The latter involves machines that have direct contact or influence on the product, such as container washers and rinsers, fillers and cappers (the operations performed by these machines will be covered in another article).

The first step in this development was to increase the production rates of the machines installed on the lines, which can now handle 100,000 cans, or bottles, per hour in a continuous, regular flow, guaranteeing the desired increase in productivity. This result has been achieved by organizing the distribution of these machines within the group where they are installed, and by implementing rules and directives which make the transfer, regulation and flow of processed containers on a packaging line a very specific discipline with its own laws and imperatives, and in which the continuous control of processed containers is one of the key players since labeling has become a reliable operation at high speeds.

This article follows on from [AG 6 520] and