When iconic Australian beverage company Bickford’s was launching two new PET formats for its premium syrup and juice brands, it turned to Sidel to convert its existing aseptic filling line.
With the trend towards premiumisation, beverage brand owners are focusing on flavour variety and product diversification in the market, while maintaining high safety standards. Bickford’s, headquartered in Adelaide, South Australia, enjoys premium positioning in the market and owns a wide product portfolio of non-alcoholic beverages, encompassing carbonated soft drinks (CSD), juice, cordials, syrup, flavoured and plant-based milk, and flavoured water.
Building on a previous successful partnership with Sidel on one-litre formats, Bickford’s reached out to Sidel again to assist the company to introduce two new formats that would further increase its market share and category penetration, and to perform maintenance for excellent product safety.
Bickford’s was already equipped with a complete flexible PET line from Sidel, handling both sensitive products and CSDs via an Aseptic Combi Predis and a Combi SF300, respectively.
Sidel experts conducted the line conversion with the company’s latest remote solutions, in just two days for each new format. In addition, and to respond to Bickford’s commitment to product quality and safety, Sidel also carried out the maintenance of the Aseptic Combi Predis remotely, while optimising line efficiency.
Fast line adaptation
Sidel supported Bickford’s with highly skilled experts and two advanced remote solutions: Remote Video Assistance (RVA) and Remote Access. Despite all the pandemic-related restrictions, all parts of the project were delivered on time.
Bickford’s complete flexible PET line was tuned-up for introducing smaller format variations of two 1-litre PET bottles originally designed by Sidel in 2019 – adding a 500 ml option for Bickford’s premium syrups and flavoured milks and a 250 ml format for its premium juice brand.
Taking advantage of real-time video assistance, Sidel experts empowered the Bickford’s team to implement the best line configurations, for instance with regards to product-dependent parts and moulds. Remote Access to the customer blow moulder, filler and labeller was also leveraged by the Sidel team to optimise recipe process parameters. In addition, the Bickford’s team benefitted from Sidel’s expertise in maintaining top line efficiency and ensuring overall packaging quality was produced with a high degree of accuracy using the remote solutions. This process focused on the optimisation of bottle conveyancing and the control of efficient machine operations.
To keep up with high product safety, 100 Clean in Place (CIP) cycle maintenance was also carried out remotely. Following careful guidance with RVA, the maintenance of Bickford’s Aseptic Combi Predis from disassembly, spare parts replacement, reassembly to testing and validation was accomplished in only three days.
“To validate that the line was running at its maximum uptime, we proceeded with production assistance. We are glad that the customer is satisfied, and they have already planned the next remote 200 CIP cycle maintenance. This open partnership approach based on constant and regular touch points with the Bickford’s maintenance team is a real lever to efficiently support them in achieving their goals,” said James Terry, service account manager at Sidel.
George Kotses, operations manager at Bickford’s, commented: “Time was precious to fulfil our market commitments. Sidel’s solid and prompt remote support empowered us to achieve the line conversion and the 100 CIP cycle maintenance with minimal downtime. These were great outcomes for our team. The strong knowledge foundations acquired by our technicians from previous Sidel training, together with the excellent expertise transfer enabled by their digital solution during these projects, was a formidable combination to keep on upskilling our team.”
