Italian dairy company Centrale del Latte di Brescia (Brescia; www.centralelatte-brescia.it) has doubled its aseptic production of UHT milk in PET bottles using equipment from machinery maker Sidel (Parma / Italy; www.sidel.com). Sidel said the company is the first milk producer in Italy to invest in its “Combi Predis”, an aseptic combined blow-fill-cap system with dry preform decontamination.

“This process is really simple and ensures a high level of decontamination, with the content of the filled bottle protected from microorganisms,” explained Guillaume Rolland, Sidel’s sensitive products category director, while adding that the choice of the aseptic Combi Predis was an important step forward in terms of food safety and sustainable production, as well as cost-savings.

By integrating preform decontamination, blowing and filling functions with cap decontamination in a single enclosure, Sidel's Combi Predis ensures an aseptically filled and capped PET bottle, without consuming water and only using minimal amounts of chemicals.

The equipment also has a reduced footprint, which was ideally suited to the space constraints faced by Centrale del Latte di Brescia. The Combi Predis can produce up to 16,000 bottles per hour for the dairy firm. The line was also equipped with Sidel conveyors and a compact accumulation table to fit with the smaller footprint.