Nova, the cup-filling equipment subsidiary of French packaging systems specialist
Serac, has played a vital role in helping US-founded manufacturer of Greek-style yoghurt, Chobani, expand and speed its production capacities to meet booming market growth.
The company was selected to supply a total of 12 filling lines to Chobani, six of which have been delivered to its plant in Melbourne, with the remainder going to its original manufacturing facility in Norwich, New York.
The new lines are primarily linear-type systems designed to handle speeds of up to 40,000 cups per hour.
These lines have enabled Chobani to achieve a cup filling accuracy with a standard deviation of less than half a per cent, translating to precision-filled tubs and avoiding costly overfill and tons of waste.
A seventh line has since been added to this array in Melbourne to produce a dessert made of five layers of both fruit and yoghurt. The line, built around a Nova Linea multilayer filling technology, was installed to a tight deadline to meet the yoghurt maker's growth plans, but was ready for operation in February this year.
Chobani's project team said that on this most recent and highly complicated project, Serac had put its best forces forward to ensure successful completion of the installation, while also honouring the dairy producer's working culture and commitment to quality.
For Serac, the most recent line posed a particular challenge to its filling know-how and expertise.
Chobani had tasked it to devise a line that could fill yoghurt cups with five alternating layers of fruit and yoghurt, all in accurate and neat portions.
The project called for specially developed nozzles in order to avoid smearing the cups, even at very high speeds.
Beyond that, however, an added difficulty was the need to use the same nozzles for fruits with different textures and chunk sizes in sizes of up to 10mm cubes.
The new nozzles supplied by Nova are able to process 19 varieties of fruit, including cherry, pineapple and mango, all at consistent quality across all batches.
Equally important to Chobani was that the layers look attractive in the cups – the company specified it wanted a perfect visual effect on shelves.
To achieve that, the nozzles were placed at 120 degree increments to be able to fill the cup from three different directions, ensuring uniform layer width and coverage.
Also, since the fruits used in the recipe are high in sugar, which brings risk of bacteria development, Serac was asked to design the nozzles to ensure stringent hygiene control.
This was accomplished by using an added valve-cleaning system that operates from the rear of the line and requires no dismounting.
This “clean-in-place” (CIP) feature is integrated within the machine, with cleaning valve movements controlled through permanent connections between the line and the central unit.
The CIP system ensures that cleaning solutions are dispensed throughout the circuits with correct circulation times and proper synchronisation of the different steps.
Serac said that by replacing manual cleaning with the CIP system, it was able to deliver Chobani a line that is more hygienic, while also generating savings in staff hours and cleaning.
Furthermore, and crucial to Chobani, the CIP solution helped it achieve increased productivity through higher plant utilisation.
The new lines have also demonstrated a capability for great flexibility. For example, one of the lines was modified during the development phase from dispensing a single fruit variety at a time to three.
The line was extended and new dosing units integrated without having to undertake a complete redesign.
