Multi-functional Visitron Filler

Gea will present its high­ly effi­cient, mul­ti­func­tion­al pro­cess­ing tech­nol­o­gy for the bev­er­age indus­try at this year’s lead­ing trade fair, BrauBe­viale, in hall 7 under the mot­to: “Refresh­ing­ly Dif­fer­ent.” On dis­play will be the Gea Vis­itron Filler All-In-One, which can fill bot­tles, cans and PET con­tain­ers on a sin­gle filler. BrauBe­viale in Nurem­berg is a short stopover for the filler before it con­tin­ues on its way to Aus­tralia – where Gea cus­tomer, Moon Dog Craft Brew­ery, is eager to inte­grate the ultra-flex­i­ble filler into its new plant.

Moon Dog Craft Brew­ery is inde­pen­dent, Aus­tralian-owned and fast approach­ing its 10^th birth­day. Orig­i­nal­ly set up in the Mel­bourne sub­urb of Abbots­ford, Moon Dog has now out­grown that facil­i­ty and is on the move to Pre­ston where the team has just opened a 12,000 m² facil­i­ty. The site will house a unique 725-per­son venue with a large new brew­ing facil­i­ty about to be com­mis­sioned, which will allow them to pro­duce over 10 mil­lion liters per year. Moon Dog is known for push­ing the lim­its with beer styles and flavours and the new facil­i­ty with a des­ig­nat­ed sour­ing ket­tle will allow them to con­tin­ue to diver­si­fy and grow mar­ket­share with­in Aus­tralia and glob­al­ly. See­ing the need to bring more effi­cien­cy into its process­es, Moon Dog ordered a Gea Vis­itron Filler All-In-One in August 2019, as well as a water deaer­a­tion sys­tem Vari­dox, a Dicar‑B car­bon­a­tion sys­tem, an Eco-Flash pas­teur­iz­er and a Plug & Win 100 cen­trifuge from the tech­nol­o­gy group.

Sustainable bottling and canning

Brew­eries are par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in Gea Vipoll fill­ing equip­ment because this sec­tor typ­i­cal­ly has the high­est demand for glass bot­tles and cans. Cus­tomers ben­e­fit from Gea’s com­mit­ment to sup­port and improve pro­duc­tion process­es end-to-end, from brew­ing to bot­tling and stor­age. Like­wise, Gea offers many solu­tions to help brew­eries low­er their CO₂ emis­sions, which is crit­i­cal for help­ing this high-con­sump­tion sec­tor meet the ambi­tious cli­mate pro­tec­tion goals it has set for itself. High­ly effi­cient man­u­fac­tur­ing as well as respon­si­ble pack­ag­ing meth­ods are there­fore key, which means glass con­tain­ers and cans will play an even greater role in glob­al envi­ron­men­tal strate­gies; refill­able bot­tles will become a cor­ner­stone of reuse ini­tia­tives and cans a valu­able recy­clable material

One for all

Gea Vipoll devel­oped the All-In-One monoblock filler as a direct response to sus­tain­abil­i­ty require­ments and is a prime exam­ple of just how lean and flex­i­ble fill­ing solu­tions can be: the com­pact All-In-One rins­es, fills and caps prod­ucts all with­in a small pro­duc­tion foot­print. Its sophis­ti­cat­ed process design saves time dur­ing fill­ing and for­mat changeovers; with­in a mat­ter of min­utes, the machine can switch to han­dle dif­fer­ent prod­ucts and con­tain­er for­mats. This is made pos­si­ble by the All-In-One’s mul­ti­func­tion­al ele­ments: the rinser is equipped with uni­ver­sal grip­pers; the filler uses an elec­tro-pneu­mat­ic fill­ing valve and a sin­gle cap­ping tur­ret is able to accom­mo­date dif­fer­ent clo­sure types.

“We chose Gea because the com­pa­ny has a great rep­u­ta­tion for man­u­fac­tur­ing high qual­i­ty machines. The All-In-One filler allows us to oper­ate a sin­gle fill­ing line for both cans and bot­tles with quick change over between for­mats. This gives us ben­e­fits in terms of floor space uti­liza­tion, and sim­plic­i­ty in main­te­nance and oper­a­tion,” says Josh Uljans, Co-Founder and CEO of Moon Dog Craft Brewery.

“The All-In-One’s mul­ti­func­tion­al sys­tem is unique in the world, because it allows for an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of flex­i­bil­i­ty; it can be used to fill glass, cans and PET con­tain­ers; han­dle dif­fer­ent for­mats and seal them with diverse cap types; can fill car­bon­at­ed or still drinks, using a hot or cold fill method,” points out Jakob Sala­mun, Sales Man­ag­er at Gea Vipoll.