Melbourne contract packing operation, Alepat Taylor, has invested $25m in an expansion to its beverage packaging plant in Preston, with the installation of a new canning line, including a KHS Innofill Compact C filling system blocked with a Ferrum seamer. PKN took a tour of the facility.
The new integrated canning line marks Alepat Taylor’s first foray into cans, as the company builds on its thriving bottling business to expand its capability and offering to customers in Australia and overseas markets.
Across its two sites in Melbourne, Alepat Taylor has five bottling lines with 60 million bottles per annum capacity. The new canning line will add 27,000 cans per hour capacity (for 375ml cans). The line is also capable of handling sleek and slim cans.
KHS managing director, Jens Kautzky, was present when PKN visited the site, and tells us that this marks the 100th installation of the Innofill Compact C in the world, and the sixth of its kind in Australia. Kautzky says the system is suited to small and medium runs, with an output of between 10,000 and 60,000 cans per hour, customisable to the filler’s needs.
Alepat Taylor’s canning line is housed in a newly built, 7500m2, extension of the company’s Preston property, which it has occupied since 2006, when the bottling side of the business first started taking off. Prior to that the company's focus had been on wholesaling and distribution, the original core focus of the business.
RICH HERITAGE DRIVES GROWTH
Alepat Taylor has a rich heritage that dates back to the 1890s. Co-founder of the business, managing director Carlo Travaglini, explains that the company initially started in 1978 as a wine and liquor wholesaler, when he and his partners purchased a small wholesale business called Alexander and Paterson, which was founded in 1892.
Almost two decades later, ready for expansion, the company purchased another long-established wine and spirit merchant, Taylor Ferguson, originally set up in 1898. The two businesses merged under the banner of Alepat Taylor, forming the foundation of what was to grow into one of the most influential liquor companies in Australia.
“In 2011, we appointed my son-in-law John Lanza to the team, who has been instrumental in growing the bottling side of the business, and in setting up the new canning facility,” Travaglini says.
John Lanza, business manager, adds, “We had a really strong team, with the acquisition in ‘96 we added some industry veterans who had a good understanding of the bottling process, as well as a good scientific and manufacturing background on the types of liquids we could process. My focus when I came on board was to take that expertise to our customers, to build their confidence that we had good process systems in place to handle both local and international brands.”
Lanza relates that the international side of the business really started taking off in 2011, attributing it to a bit of good luck, but also the team’s expertise. The first global client was in the ready-to-drink (RTD) market, a sector that has subsequently taken off for the business, in line with growth in the RTD market generally.
The bottling business, which was packing around 600,000 cases per annum at the start, catapulted to the five million cases per annum it is currently producing. The range of products filled includes wines, spirits, RTDS, and non-alcoholic carbonated beverages.
EXPANDING INTO CANS
It’s not surprising then, given the rising popularity of aluminium cans as a packaging format, that the next logical step was to invest in a canning line.
Lanza says the company had considered going into cans as far back as 2015, but it was around 2018 when they first started putting feelers out to canning equipment suppliers. After an extensive screening process, KHS won the contract.
Lanza says, “As a co-packer, we needed in-built flexibility to manage a variety of products and packaging configurations, and we needed a supplier who could do more than just install the equipment. KHS won the contract because they have a strong local base, with capacity to offer ongoing service support and automated storage of spare parts.”
Travaglini adds, “The technology of the machine really sealed it for us, this machine has really easy changeover from one product size to another, and in that respect, it is well in advance of others on the market.”
An advantage for KHS is the depth of its technical expertise on the ground in Australia, with 10 qualified engineers on the team, who attend intensive product training once or twice a year in Germany, as Kautzky explains.
Lanza says, “The KHS crew was really knowledgeable and able to guide us in the right direction when they were assembling the equipment, so there were a couple of features we have in place now that we probably wouldn’t have thought of.”
The line includes a clean-in-place (CIP) plant, blender, filler, depalletiser, rinser, seamer, pasteuriser, and then the checking systems – fill height inspection and lid inspection, the latter using advanced pressure technology.
With the new line currently in commissioning phase, Lanza is confident that Alepat Taylor’s existing customers, many of which already have a drinks portfolio in cans, will bring their business across so that they can take advantage of the one-stop-shop co-packing service the company can now offer.
For this family-owned business, which prides itself on value-driven customer relationships, and a comprehensive production, bottling and distribution capability, adding cans into the mix will raise the bar even higher, and drive growth for generations to come.
