Introduction

Food and Beverage industry is one of the most popular industries. There is never a scarcity of choices in the market for beverages because it is a necessity and humans love and enjoy drinking them. It is, for this reason, every year some companies and brands join the beverage industry and come up with a new variety, taste, mixture of ingredients, and flavor for their customers. If you are planning to enter the industry and introduce your brand in the market, you must do your research thoroughly because it is extremely important. Many new entrants start by investing heavily in the equipment for the beverage production and this is where they often go wrong. Having your brewing equipment has its advantage but often it comes up with high costs. Even some basic equipment can cost you millions of dollars because the equipment produced is usually of high quality and is extremely specialized. Therefore, the equipment should be owned considering the type of beverage company you are operating and what stage you are currently at. If you are an already established and successful brand in the industry, and having the equipment is crucial for your business operations then in this article we will help you to find out what equipment is necessary to purchase.

Types of Bottling Equipment

In terms of bottling, you might need two types of equipment:

Semi- Automatic

For the companies that have just started their business and their target market is small, limited and only regional, semi- automatic equipment is ideal for them to purchase. This includes machines for capping and labeling, rinsing bottles, and filling. If you have less space for production then purchasing tabletop machinery may be a good idea. For a basic bottling line, you may need labelers, cappers, and tabletop fillers that could be run by one or more than one operator. You can create a packaging line for your product by having the filling system that is uni-framed. This kind of system includes an automatic machine that does the filling and you can add on other types of machinery to the frame as per your choice. Usually, the uni-frame machine systems in the beverage industry come up with capers, labelers, and bottle rinsing and cleaning machines. The best part about having semi-automatic bottling equipment is that you can simply and easily upgrade it in the future to the automatic equipment as per the needs of the changing market conditions and growth of the business.

Automatic

As the company grows, at one point or the other you would need to purchase automatic bottling equipment which would include a bottle cleaning machine that is completely automatic. These machines usually have a vacuum in them and they help to clean the bottles before the beverage is poured in them. They do this by inverting the bottle over a basin to remove debris and all kinds of pollutants to make sure the bottle is clean. The Health of the consumer is extremely important that is why it has to be cleaned properly to ensure it is safe to drink. These machines also use a special kind of nozzle to lose out the debris first and then the vacuum is used to suck out the waste particles. These automatic bottle cleaners use PLC that can simply be operated with a touch.

After cleaning the bottle the next step is to fill liquid in it. Some of the automatic filling machines that can be purchased include for example gravity fillers and overflow fillers. Overflow fillers are capable of handling the foaming that can occur in some specific drinks whereas gravity fillers are easy simple and time-based fillers that can help to fill up the bottle to a consistent level without any hassle. Automatic filling machines also use PLC like rinsing machines and are capable of handling different record times, delays and durations for some particular bottles.

Once the bottles are filled you need to seal them. For this, you can purchase automatic capping machines that can automatically do the sealing without any difficulty. To preserve the color, taste and to increase the shelf life of the beverage many companies use nitrogen pure systems before capping and sealing. The capping systems include cap delivery systems that constantly cap the bottles automatically when the bottles move to the packaging. Some popular capping machines in the beverage industry include ROPP caps, snap caps, spindle cappers, and chuck cappers.

The next step after capping is labeling. Many beverages that have wrap labels use automatic labeling machinery that is sensitive to the pressure. The type of the labeling done depends greatly on the kind of bottle being used and how the bottler wishes to label it. These machines also have a coding function to print out the batch number, expiry date, and other important information. Once the labeling is done the bottle is ready to be taken to the shelf and exposed to the customer.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned information helps us to learn about the important types and kinds of equipment that are required if you are an already established brand in the beverage industry. However, if you are a new entrant, buying the equipment may not be a good idea. It is better and advisable to outsource the equipment because as mentioned above, the equipment is extremely costly and you can save this money for doing other important thing such as improving your product, doing market research, and learning about competitors. Outsourcing is cheaper and does not compromise on the quality of the equipment provided. This will also reduce the hassle of buying trucks, machines, and other pieces of equipment as the outsourcing companies will provide you everything for a fee that is easy to manage and is hassle-free. For a new entrant, outsourcing reduces the risk and the capital that is required to enter into the business so even if you do not sell much your investment in the business is limited to a minimum quantity.