Twig’s Beverage is a longtime contract packager for Keurig Dr Pepper's Sun Drop soda in nostalgic glass returnable bottles, in addition to its own Twig’s line of retro-inspired specialty sodas. With a commitment to quality and community, Twig’s has been producing and distributing iconic sodas for the Upper Midwest since 1951.
As beloved as its old-school approach is, the company and its 20 team members faced a new-school challenge: outdated conveyor and handling systems that struggled to keep pace with modern production demands and hampered its plans for expansion.
A small-town soda tradition
Ben Hartwig (left), vice president at Twig's Beverage, with production manager Chris Fietzer.
Today, Twig’s remains a family operation led by Hartwig’s son, Dan, and grandson, Ben. The company continues to uphold its commitment to quality by maintaining the original Sun Drop recipe for Keurig Dr Pepper.
"Sun Drop was the original golden citrus drink,” says Ben Hartwig, vice president of Twig’s Beverage. “And Twig’s is the last returnable bottler for Sun Drop in the world.”
In addition to producing Sun Drop for Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. in glass bottles—the lion’s share of its business—Twig’s launched its own line of sodas, reaching new markets beyond its Sun Drop territory, in 2014. Twig’s brand now offers 18 flavors, including Black Cherry, Rhu-Berry (a rhubarb/strawberry blend), and Butterscotch Root Beer, all packaged in 12-oz. glass bottles. (Its 19th flavor, Diet Cola, comes out later this year.)
A legacy line breaks down
In recent years, Twig’s legacy bottling line, which had equipment in operation since the 1950s, was plagued by frequent breakdowns and inefficiencies.
“We'd have issues and breaks on it, like every week,” Hartwig says. “Bottles would be tipping over left and right because it wasn't a smooth transfer.”
Broken glass on the shop floor was not the only problem.
“It was an old-school, metal tracking system, and parts on it would break,” Hartwig says. “We would have to shut down production to work on that one piece and get it going again, and it was hard to find replacement parts.”
Twig’s installed a new CIMEC rotary filler to enhance efficiency.
Delays and production stoppages caused by the outdated handling system were problematic. For one, the problems were limiting Twig’s ability to scale operations to introduce new products the company was planning to launch. They also put stress on Twig’s dedicated team members, who wanted to ensure orders were filled and that the company’s Twig’s Museum and Gift Shop, which gives plant tours and offers soda samples to visitors, was well-stocked.
Recognizing the need to modernize, Twig’s partnered with custom conveyor specialists Multi-Conveyor, headquartered one hour away. The goal: to reconfigure and update the bottling and handling line, making it more reliable and efficient while accommodating new bottle types.
Modern systems for retro bottles
In the fall of 2023, Twig’s undertook a significant upgrade to modernize its production capabilities while preserving its heritage and quality. The company installed new filling equipment and Multi-Conveyor conveyors running throughout the entire line, along with updates to other key equipment.
The new system includes three powered plastic tabletop chain conveyors and a rotary accumulation table from Multi-Conveyor to streamline the entire bottling process. Glass soda bottles are manually unloaded onto a single-lane conveyor, passing through a Model 60 orbital rinser from McBrady Engineering, ensuring each returnable bottle is perfectly clean before filling.
The bottles are then transferred onto a 90-degree side-flexing plastic chain curve that feeds into a CIMEC 12-valve counter-pressure filler for precise filling and a PROCARB 10 carbonator from ProMach's ProBrew that blends flavors with carbonated water.
“We worked closely with Multi-Conveyor to ensure the track system matched perfectly with the dimensions of our CIMEC fillers,” says Hartwig.
Filled and crowned bottles rotate on a Multi-Conveyor accumulation table before being inspected and hand-packed into cases.
Retooling for new products
The collaborative effort helps maintain production consistency across Twig’s two main lines for both non-returnable and returnable glass bottles. What’s more, the upgraded line also positioned Twig’s for growth beyond glass-bottled sodas in 2024, when they launched Twig's FIZZ, a soft seltzer line in 12-oz. PET bottles.
Twig’s employs two separate capping systems: an AROL EAGLE-C IES automatic single-head crowning machine for bottles with pry-off crowns, and a Kinex QuickFeed Capper for plastic bottles with twist-off caps. With dual-closure flexibility, Twig’s can switch between bottle types, enhancing production versatility.
The bottling line upgrade helped Twig’s launch its first seltzer water line in PET bottles in 2024.
Filled and capped bottles move onto Multi-Conveyor’s secondary 90-degree side-flexing curve conveyor that feeds into a CTM 360 Series pressure-sensitive modular labeler from CTM Labeling Systems. This labeler handles both plastic seltzer bottles and blank non-returnable glass bottles (traditional returnable glass bottles retain their etched paint designs.) A Citronix coder marks each bottle with production dates for traceability and quality control, with returnable bottles being coded on the cap.
Bottles continue to Twig’s new rotary accumulation table from Multi-Conveyor, where operators hand-pack the beverages into cases for shipment.
One of the challenges was designing the line layout in a compact space, and Hartwig says Multi-Conveyor delivered on it.
“They came back in and made sure the line layout worked for us,” Hartwig says. “The communication is always very clear—as soon as we need to talk to them about anything, they’re there for us.”
Co-packing beyond Sun Drop
In addition to bottling for its own brand and Sun Drop, Twig’s has expanded its co-packing services to regional brands looking to bring new sodas to market. Twig’s flexible production setup, low minimum order quantities, and commitment to quality make it an appealing partner for brands testing new products before large-scale production.
