Latteria Soresina bottles its fresh milk in PET

By starting to bottle fresh milk in PET containers, Latteria Soresina in the Italian province of Cremona is tapping into a new segment of the market.
For the fresh milk now being offered in 1-litre PET containers Latteria Soresina has installed a PET line from Krones. In Italy, fresh milk is marketed mainly in PET, so Latteria Soresina purchased a blow-moulder/filler BLOC featuring a Contiform S8 stretch blow-moulding machine and a Volumetic VODM-PET filler with 32 filling valves, constructed as diaphragm valves with a strainer, ensuring a neat, free jet and low foaming. Low energy consumption was a major consideration. In addition to the standard Air Wizard I and II modules provided for reducing the dead-space volume and the final blow-moulding pressure, Latteria Soresina also had the Air Wizard Module 3 installed. This processes any superfluous final blow-moulding air and returns it to the compressor, with concomitant savings in terms of capital investment and operating costs.
The BLOC is completely enclosed, with the freshly blow-moulded 21-litre PET contains being fed to the filler in neck-handling mode through an enclosed tunnel. After the bottles have been filled and capped, a reel-fed Contiroll labeller dresses them in wrap-around labels. The labeller-filler BLOC can be handled by a single operator.
Overall, General Director Dr. Luciano Negri is extremely satisfied with the line. “The installation work went off without a hitch, Krones timed everything perfectly. Since February 2008, we’ve been running the line continuously, and are meanwhile producing more output than originally planned; fortunately the Krones line provides us with sufficient reserve capacity.”