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Aseptic advancements make it tea time in Asia

Kirin of Japan and Uni-President of Taiwan are taking advantage of pioneering new developments in aseptic packaging technology to sell their teas.

Kirin aseptically fills either 350- or 500-mL PET bottles at 900/min on its new line.
Kirin aseptically fills either 350- or 500-mL PET bottles at 900/min on its new line.

As machinery builders specializing in aseptic packaging aseptic packaging systems for plastic bottles continue to improve their equipment’s capabilities, one beverage in Asia seems to be finding its way into polyethylene terephthalate bottles with greater and greater frequency: tea. Making this development all the more dynamic is that no one equipment manufacturer is behind it.

For Daiwa Can of Japan (see story p. 52), aseptic packaging equipment comes from Italian manufacturers. But at Kirin in Taiwan, the key machinery suppliers were a fellow Japanese manufacturer and a German blow-molding equipment expert. Meanwhile, also in Taiwan, beverage giant Uni-President chose an equipment supplier out of Geneva, Switzerland, for its aseptic packaging equipment. Talk about a global supply chain.

While an in-plant visit and interview opportunities were available at Daiwa Can’s Ooigawa plant, Kirin and Uni-President, for now at least, are less receptive. Still, both companies have recently installed major aseptic lines that are worth reporting on, even though details are scarce. Both lines differ from Daiwa Can’s in the way they seek to minimize the amount of square footage required for clean-room conditions.

The line at Kirin Beverage’s plant in Shonan, Taiwan, is said to be the world’s fastest for single-serve PET bottles. It was developed by Kirin and Shibuya, represented in the U.S. by Shibuya Intl. (Modesto, CA). Help on microbiological sterilizing technology was provided by Shibuya partner Dai Nippon Printing Co. The line fills 350- or 500-mL (11.83- or 16.9-oz) bottles of tea at 900/min. The cost of the project was 4 billion yen (U.S.$37 million), including the facility and the equipment.

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