Beckton factory tour
From empty bottle to pallet in 15 minutes
Welcome to our factory
This booklet provides an overview of the processes
and equipment you will see on the factory floor.
You will find an overview of our tour on the back
page. Look out for numbered signs as you walk
round, as each one corresponds to a different stage
in the production process, and has a relevant page
in this booklet.
The production process
1 Mixing the drinks
Pasteurisation
Ingredients
2
Mixing and blending
Carbonation
Filling and packing
3
4
Packaging
5
Labelling
Rinsing, filling and capping
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7
8
Palletising and shipping
6
Multipacking
Quality inspection and coding
Did you know?
Each mixing tank
holds a volume of
30,000 litres.
Mixing the drinks
• In our mixing room water, sugar and syrups are carefully measured and mixed together in huge stainless steel tanks for around 25 minutes.
• There are four production lines at this site, and each one is supplied by three mixing tanks. That means that 90,000 litres of liquid can be mixed at any one time for each line.
• In this factory we use flash pasteurisation to destroy any naturally
occurring bacteria or mould. This involves heating the liquid to
approximately 95 degrees centigrade for 15 seconds and then immediately cooling it.
• Drinks are carbonated by dissolving carbon dioxide into the liquid at high pressure, which transforms their flavour and mouthfeel.
1
Did you know?
We have four production lines, one
producing 48,000 x 500ml bottles per
hour, another producing 21,000 x 1.5ltr
bottles per hour and a further two
producing 16 -18,000 x 2ltr bottles
per hour.
Traffic light
Filling and packing
2
• The production line is where all the parts of the finished product are brought together. Precision and accuracy are vital to the operation running smoothly.
• Our technicians are on hand in case the production line fails. A traffic light system is used to indicate how the machines are working: if you see a red light the machine has stopped and the operator may require the assistance of a technician. This site employs 136 people working 24 hours over five days.
• Our production lines are up to 200 metres long to prevent bottles building up and delaying the process if there is a short stoppage.
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Preforms
Packaging
• PET is the only type of packaging used at our Beckton factory - cans and other bottles are produced at our other locations.
• We blow all our plastic bottles ourselves from small custom-made preforms that look like test tubes.
•
•
The preforms pass through an oven which heats them to 180 degrees. They are then transferred into moulds and compressed air is used to blow the bottles to the shape of the moulds.
By blowing our bottles on site, we have reduced the energy used by deliveries from our suppliers by 90%, saving four million road miles per year.
• Our bottle blowing machine has a maximum output capacity of 22,820 bottles per hour, which is 1,630 bottles per mould.
3
Did you know?
One of our fillers produces 13 bottles
per second. Every 24 hours we
produce enough product to fill an
Olympic sized swimming pool.
Rinsing
Filling
Capping
Rinsing, filling and capping
• Empty bottles are inverted, clamped into position and rinsed with purified water before being turned back up the right way and filled to the correct level.
• The fillers run at between 266 and 800 bottles a minute according to product size. If you laid out every bottle we made in a year, end to end, they would stretch around the world one and a half times.
• The bottles are filled gradually as the filling machine rotates, so
that the bottle is filled to the correct level at exactly the moment it is capped and carried off on a conveyor belt for labelling.
4
Did you know?
Each reel of labels is approximately
four miles long. In five days we use
enough labels to span the length of
the Great Wall of China.
Labels
Labelling
• The labeller has a maximum speed of 25,000 bottles per hour, and can label any size bottle from 250ml to 2 litres.
• The labelling machine applies labels from continuous, pre-printed rolls with special glue to fix the label securely, even in chilled, wet conditions.
•
Labelling of food and drink products is highly regulated and all Britvic products are labelled in compliance with both legislation and
supplementary codes of practice. We include the product name and description, ingredients, nutrition information panel and guideline daily amounts.
5
Quality inspection and coding
•
Every 15 minutes, samples from each production line are tested in
our lab, with our experts carefully examining the taste, appearance, sugar and pH levels to ensure all our drinks conform to Britvic’s high quality standards and regulations. We retain every sample for reference, enabling us to double check for shelf life and identify any problems that may occur. • Bottles are quality checked after filling to ensure they are filled to the right level and that the closure has been fitted correctly.
• After labelling, each bottle is printed with a best before code that also details its date, time and line of manufacture.
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6
Film
Did you know?
The packers can produce 8,500
cases per hour between them.
That equates to 132,000 bottles
and 141 full pallets.
Multi-packing
•
The bottles are covered loosely with film before passing through the heat tunnel, where they are heated to a temperature of approx 170 degrees centigrade for 10 seconds. The heat causes the plastic to weld together and shrink tightly around the product, giving the pack its strength and rigidity.
• Our line 4 packer runs six different case formats - the packer is adjusted manually to run each variant.
•
All our cardboard packaging is made entirely from recycled materials or material derived from sustainable sources. However, as part of our ongoing effort to save energy and reduce packaging, we are working to remove the cardboard trays from our shrinkwrapped packs wherever possible.
7
Did you know?
Our palletising machine operates
at a speed of 60 units per hour,
1,500 per day.
Palletising and shipping
• The palletiser is programmed to configure the cases so that the maximum number can be loaded onto each pallet.
•
Once full, the pallets are stretch-wrapped to ensure they are stable for transport. The film wrap is pre-stretched by at least 200% so that less can be used and what is used will not stretch any more on the pallet. • On an average day we send out 80 to 100 lorries.
• Our factory can produce as many as 200,000 cases of soft drinks per day.
8
1
Mixing the drinks
2
Filling and packing
3
Packaging
4
Rinsing, filling and capping
5
Labelling
6
Quality inspection and coding
7
Multi-packing
8
Palletising and shipping
OFFICES AND
CANTEEN
LEARNING ZONE
INCOMING MATERIALS
MIXING ROOM
1
LAB
2
4
6
FINISHED PRODUCTS
STORE
PRODUCTION
AREA
5
8
7
FIRE ASSEMBLY
POINT
VEHICLE LOADING AREA
GATE HOUSE
3
BOTTLE BLOWING
RODING ROAD
If you want to learn more, check out the Britvic Learning Zone online at www.britviclearningzone.com