Unique labeller for unique containers

A label with creas­es, and a labeller that delib­er­ate­ly pro­duces these creas­es – what for most bev­er­age pro­duc­ers is a no-no was one of the para­mount require­ments of Mozart Dis­til­lerie in Salzburg. A look at the container’s shape explains the para­dox: the liqueur bot­tles are spher­i­cal, to con­note the world-famous “Mozart-Kugel”. The label, made of alu­mini­um-coat­ed paper foil, is required to fit snug­ly round the con­tain­er – and to look as if it had been applied by hand.

Hith­er­to, Mozart Dis­til­lerie had been using what is mean­while a 30-year-old labeller from a cus­tomised-machine man­u­fac­tur­er, which Plant Man­ag­er Friedrich Guggen­berg­er had pro­gres­sive­ly indi­vid­u­alised over the course of time with numer­ous design enhance­ments of his own. But the out­put no longer suf­ficed – and Mozart Dis­til­lerie was look­ing for a part­ner to joint­ly devel­op a new machine.

Numerous customisation features combined

Because Kro­nes’ cor­po­rate roots, of course, orig­i­nate in labelling tech­nol­o­gy, the firm accept­ed the chal­lenge – and com­bined the long years of prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence and visions con­tributed by Friedrich Guggen­berg­er and his team with the tech­ni­cal exper­tise of Kro­nes’ own labelling spe­cial­ists. And the results are tru­ly impres­sive: a com­bi­na­tion of fea­tures for pre­cise con­tain­er posi­tion­ing, sev­er­al inspec­tion sys­tems, and a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of tech­no­log­i­cal cus­tomi­sa­tion improve­ments ensure that Mozart Distillerie’s require­ments are trans­lat­ed into engi­neered real­i­ty. For labelling, Kro­nes is for the first time deploy­ing a com­bi­na­tion of one cold-glue and one wrap-around Con­tiroll labelling sta­tion, and pres­sure-sen­si­tive body labels are applied to a slop­ing area. For affix­ing the foil, Kro­nes devel­oped a patent­ed com­bi­na­tion of a ser­vo­mo­tor that turns the bot­tles, and lin­ear motors that in twelve press-on oper­a­tions use sponges to care­ful­ly press the foil onto the containers.

In order to ensure that the clo­sure cap is cor­rect­ly posi­tioned as well, Kro­nes has spe­cial­ly devel­oped a guide rail that uses the slop­ing label area as an ori­en­ta­tion ref­er­ence point. These rails can be re-adjust­ed with only a few manip­u­la­tions, so that all six sizes – from the small 50-mil­li­l­itre to the large one-litre bot­tle – can be han­dled with the same system.

The new line is cur­rent­ly dress­ing around 5,000 bot­tles per hour, with an option for increas­ing the out­put to as much as 9,000 bph. It embod­ies two anti­thet­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics: the tech­nol­o­gy is ful­ly auto­mat­ed to the lat­est state of the art, while the results, by con­trast, reflect Mozart Distillerie’s craft philosophy.