Reaping the benefits for quality and economy with InnoPET Plasmax coating technology

Jaroslaw Gajda*

Van Pur is one of the first brewing companies in Poland to order a system for the manufacture, filling and packaging of PET bottles for their Rakszawa site in the southeast of Poland. The company specifically opted for advanced and reliable KHS process engineering. Their investment included an InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow molder, an Innofill DVF PET filler, an Innoket SE labeler and Innopack Kisters packaging technology. An InnoPET Plasmax 12D was also included in the delivery, where the insides of PET bottles are coated with an ultrathin layer of glass against harmful gas migration, thus providing optimum protection for beer and other sensitive beverages. In investing in an InnoPET Plasmax 12D Van Pur is the first brewery in Poland and the second in Europe to opt for Plasmax technology. The company now holds a pioneering position on the Polish and European markets and has a definite competitive edge, according to Piotr Polanski, operations director at Van Pur. "Excellent product quality is our top priority," he says. "This is why we went for Plasmax technology. This was definitely the right decision. With the Plasmax coating process we can guarantee our consumers a shelf life of up to eight months for our beer in PET bottles. Test results have shown that the quality of the beer is outstanding during this period and directly comparable to that of beer bottled in glass. We're also convinced by the economic aspects of Plasmax coating, as using this is much more cost effective than, say, investing in multilayer PET bottles."  

Number four among Polish breweries with sales of over four million hectoliters a year

The Van Pur brewing company is a top player on the Polish market. It produces over four million hectoliters of beer a year at its five breweries, thus accounting for approximately 10% of all beer produced in Poland. This makes  the company number four among Poland's breweries. This is a proud achievement, especially when we consider that the company changed ownership a couple of times during its history.

*Manager of the KHS branch office in Poland, KHS GmbH. 

Phone: +48 22 6468 490 

90% of all equipment from KHS

Van Pur was founded in 1989 in Rzeszów in the southeast of Poland. Three years later it began working together with KHS when it invested in one of the first canning lines in Poland. Says Polanski, “Since then Van Pur has continuously relied on KHS engineering. About 90% of the filling and packaging equipment we use today is from KHS. This is quite simply because we're really satisfied with KHS’ reliable technology."

Changes of ownership

By 1997 the company was producing 350,000 hectoliters of beer per annum, with this figure mushrooming to 700,000 by the year 2000. This success was duly noted – and not just on the Polish side of the border; the Austrian Brau Union or brewing union showed great interest in Van Pur and soon purchased the company. The move was less than satisfactory, however, as sales rapidly dropped; by 2003 they had fallen to about 180,000 hectoliters. The Brau Union thus decided to withdraw from the Polish market and the original owners, comprising a group of Polish and German entrepreneurs, bought the brewery back. 

Steady upwards trend since 2003

Since 2003 Van Pur has experienced a steady upwards trend, making a number of acquisitions that have expanded its production capacities. In 2005, for example, the company purchased a brewery in Zabrze and in 2009 another in Koszalin. In 2011 Van Pur took over the breweries owned by Royal Unibrew in Łomża and Jędrzejów and in doing so established a network of facilities throughout practically the whole of Poland. Looking at the production capacities for each of these breweries, Rakszawa takes the lead with an annual production of 1.4 million hectoliters. Hot on its heels is Łomża with 900,000 hectoliters, followed by Koszalin and Zabrze with 680,000 hectoliters apiece and finally Jędrzejów at 350,000 hectoliters.

Own beer brands and generic brands

The five Van Pur breweries produce brand beers which are distributed both regionally and nationally, some of which have been established on the market for many years. These include Łomża, Brok, Slaskie and Karpackie. There's also the company's home Van Pur brand which is primarily destined for export and produced for retail chains. In 2013 the company also added non-alcoholic malt beverages and kvass to its portfolio.

Biggest beer exporter in Poland

With an export share of almost 50% Van Pur has been Poland's biggest exporter of beer for years. Van Pur beers are now available in 50 countries and on six continents, the main export markets being Italy, Hungary, Ireland and Africa, among others. States Polanski, "We're focused on future growth in export sales in particular, mainly because the consumption of beer in Poland has probably reached its limits at approximately 90 liters per head and year."

Canned beer is gaining in popularity

Most of Van Pur's beer is canned, both for export purposes and the domestic market. In order to meet this high demand for beer in cans, in 2012 KHS delivered a brand-new canning line (wet section) to the brewery in Rakszawa. Within the company about 60% of sales is now attributable to canned beer, with beer in glass bottles making up 25% of the turnover. Beer in kegs and – since very recently – in PET accounts for the remaining 15% sales share. 

In Poland, drinking beer from the can is gaining in popularity, with sales rising considerably year by year since 1997. By 2002 canned beer already had a market share of about 30%, with the percentage of the share currently at 40. The can owes its popularity to its simple and convenient handling for consumers.

PET bottles also extremely convenient; KHS PET line in three-shift operation soon after installation

Polanski claims that “beer in PET bottles is just as easy and comfortable to handle as it is in cans. Here, consumers have a light, resealable and unbreakable container to hand. We're thus assuming that there'll be a growing demand for beer in PET bottles, too. Of course, in venturing into the beer-in-PET segment we wanted to make sure that the new packaging meets our demands for the highest quality – right from the very start. We think this is the only way we can ultimately convince consumers of the benefits of the PET bottle in the long term. We're very pleased with our success rate so far. When we decided to invest in our new KHS PET line at the end of 2012, one of the targets we set ourselves in the short to medium term, for instance, was to have it running at full capacity in two-shift operation, with a third shift making bottles for stock on the InnoPET Blomax and InnoPET Plasmax. Just one year later the whole line’s running continuously in three shifts! We've therefore already ordered another InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow molder."

This additional InnoPET Blomax enables coated PET bottles to be manufactured on the brewery's first InnoPET Plasmax and InnoPET Blomax machines parallel to the filling of kvass and non-alcoholic malt beverages on the same line. As the latter products are much less sensitive than beer, these are filled into non-coated PET bottles. The filler will then be fully utilized when beer is later bottled. The reasoning is as follows. The filling system can fill 25,000 0.5-liter, 21,000 0.6-liter, 15,000 1.0-liter and 11,000 1.5-liter bottles per hour; the InnoPET Blomax produces 13,200 bottles at the most every 60 minutes and the InnoPET Plasmax 12D coats a maximum of 12,000 bottles an hour. By incorporating two stretch blow molders into the line coated PET bottles can therefore also be produced offline along the course of the line. These are then palletized, temporarily stored and reintroduced to the line as and when required by a depalletizer integrated into the system. 

Second InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow molder for Van Pur

Back to Polanski. "The InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow molders do have their price. However, they’re also well worth it. Their reliability and efficient operation have been greatly endorsed at our brewery in Rakszawa and convinced us to again invest in this technology.” Another major selling point of the InnoPET Blomax Series IV is its great flexibility in production thanks to the servomotor-controlled stretching process. This ensures that the speed of the blow molder always perfectly adjusts itself to the specifications of the filling system. Beverage fillers thus achieve maximum process stability and in turn are able to optimize preform weights down to the last tenth of a gram of PET material. Van Pur manufactures PET bottles in a range of shapes and sizes holding 0.5, 0.6, 1.0 and 1.5 liters. It often switches between bottle designs, thus fast changeovers are also very important to the company. With the use of the Speed-Loc system and improved accessibility to the stretch blow molder all requirements are met.

Sustainable and saves space

Another major advantage of the InnoPET Blomax Series IV is its low energy consumption. Much of this energy saving is obtained in the heater area which heats the preforms using shortwave infrared radiation. This means shorter heating times and that the heater now only takes up a small amount of space. The blow stations on the blow wheel have also been arranged so that they save space on the InnoPET Blomax Series IV; they are staggered in relation to one another and therefore positioned extremely close together, with each one producing up to 2,250 bottles per hour. The latest series also cuts down on the amount of compressed air used thanks to a targeted redesign of the valve block. Depending on the bottle volume 5–15% compressed air can be saved on the Series IV. The dead space volume (the volume of air which is applied at high pressure but which does not help to form the PET bottle) has also been reduced by 25–30%. 

InnoPET Plasmax 12D the highlight of the new line

Polanski considers the InnoPET Plasmax 12D to be the greatest highlight of the new line. "As all of our PET beer bottles have a Plasmax barrier coating, we're definitely on the safe side when it comes to maintaining the freshness and quality taste of our beer throughout our guaranteed minimum shelf life of eight months,” he says.

Ultrathin inner glass coating 

It may be interesting to learn that Plasmax coating technology is an offshoot of the glass industry. Here, engineers first strove to develop a process which could coat the insides of glass containers with a layer of pure glass for special pharmaceutical applications. The Plasmax coating used in PET bottles today is also made of 100% glass and perfectly protects even the most sensitive of beverages against loss of quality. Plasmax coating thus prevents oxygen from penetrating the product and carbon dioxide from escaping from it. The inner coating has no effect on the bottle’s original weight or elasticity. The coating is strongly bound to the bottle’s interior wall. 

Fully recyclable

Another benefit of Plasmax barrier technology is its environmental friendliness; Plasmax bottles are 100% recyclable (bottle-to-bottle recycling). The glass barrier can be easily separated from the PET material by simple treatment with caustic. Polanski tells us more. "What helped trigger our decision to invest in the InnoPET Plasmax, among other factors, was that KHS not only supplied us with the machine but also with a coating recipe which was specifically tailored to our requirements and endorsed by the KHS lab. Everything was therefore perfectly coordinated from the very beginning.” In order to also convince brewery employees of the benefits of the new technology, they were fully involved in the installation of the line and invited to take part in a blind testing session. Polanski states, "Everyone could clearly taste the much better quality of the beer in Plasmax bottles after three months’ storage. All of our employees are now convinced by innovative Plasmax coating and its impact on the taste experience.”

Perfect system for economy

For a cost-conscious brewing company like Van Pur the financial aspects of the investment also play a big role. "All of our calculations showed that Plasmax barrier coating technology is a cost-effective system for us," claims Polanski. "Here, we have high quality coupled with a solid price/performance ratio."

Innofill DVF for a very gentle, low-oxygen filling process

In Polanski's opinion the same goes for the filling process which involves a KHS Innofill DVF machine. In this computer-controlled, volumetric pressure filling system, the bottom-up filling method with a long filling tube makes for a particularly gentle filling process and low oxygen pickup by the product. The filling process is divided into the following steps: a slow initial filling phase, subsequent fast filling and decelerated filling phases and finally pre-snifting and final snifting. Volumetric filling of the PET bottles by means of electromagnetic, inductive flowmetering ensures exact fill levels. In addition, changeover times when switching PET bottle sizes and beer types are fast. 

Modular Innoket SE 2080 labeler provides maximum flexibility

Van Pur's assortment of bottles is labeled by a KHS Innoket SE 2080 labeling machine. This has a cold glue unit for neck labels and a roll-fed labeling station for applying wrap-around labels to the bottle body. One of the distinguishing features of this modular labeler is that it can be very quickly adapted to meet new requirements. The basic version of the Innoket SE consists of a table structure and the central labeling carousel which can be flexibly equipped with a variety of labeling stations. If an additional labeling process is required, such as self-adhesive or hot melt label application, the only necessary investment would be in an extra labeling station. A simple disengage and engage process is all it takes to switch the machine over to the new labeling stations. During changeovers, the synchronization of all stations to one another is always automatically restored by software and computer. Says Polanski, "This machine meets our labeling requirements very well and gives us the security that any future changes in requirement can be easily made. For a company like ours, which reacts extremely flexibly to new consumer demands, this is essential."

KHS Kisters packing technology a must

The bottles produced by Van Pur are wrapped in film by a KHS Kisters packaging machine. Polanski states that “KHS Kisters packaging technology is characterized by its great sturdiness, perfect packing quality and a long service life. Our company’s experience with KHS Kisters systems has been positive for several years now.”

Prepared for more success on all counts

All told, new KHS PET plant engineering has Van Pur well prepared for even more success which in all probability will grace the brewery's export business in particular. Polanski comes to the conclusion that "Thanks to the use of innovative Plasmax technology for our PET bottles we will carry on meeting our demand for premium products in this container segment as well. As the largest privately-run brewing company in Poland we're also continuing to benefit from fast decision-making processes and therefore a high degree of flexibility. As far as the future's concerned, we thus feel we're very well prepared on all counts."