Tetra Pak triples production rate for Chinese dairy
Tetra Paksays that its Tetra Pak A3/speed filling machine for Tetra Prisma aseptic portion packs has been successfully deployed with its first customer Mengniu, a Chinese dairy.
Running at a speed of 24,000 packs per hour, or approximately seven packs per second, the machine is one of the world’s fastest filling machine for carton packages, pushing operational cost down by as much as 35%, the company says.
Mengniu’s decision to purchase it in November 2012 was based on a successful field test and the need to respond to the rising demand for its premium flavoured milk, Latte. The company was running two filling machines at full capacity in 2012, delivering an annual output of 94 million packs, but was still not able to keep up with demand.
“Within ten months of installation, 100 million packages had been produced on a single line, and we were able to reduce the overall operational cost for Latte by 20% in comparison with low speed filling machines. Based on these results, we made the decision to order three more lines,” said Gao Jianjun, factory manager of Mengniu Dairy Plant in Ma’anshan City.