The Pepsi Bottling Group is the largest manufacturer, vendor, and distributor of Pepsi brand products. Around half the Pepsi brand products sold in North America and 40 per cent of the Pepsi brand products sold globally are attributable to the listed company, in which PepsiCo Inc. holds around 40 per cent of the shares.
The Pepsi Bottling Group was established in March 1999 and operates in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and Greece.
With a workforce of around 70,000, the company people realises annual sales of around 14 billion US dollars.
The opening of a new KHS PET line at Yekaterinburg was a key step for the Pepsi Bottling Group in Russia and at the same time for KHS in Russia.
The new line is designed for an output of 60,000 0.6-liter or 45,000 1.25-liter PET bottles per hour. According to Eduard Rossel, governor of the Sverdlovskaya region and Arkadij Mikhailowitsch Tschernetskij, mayor of Yekaterinburg, the new line is highly significant for the whole region.
Both officials attended the high-profile opening ceremony. Rajendra Gursahaney, Worldwide Senior Engineering Director at Pepsi Bottling Group, explains why the ceremony for this new line in particular is such a very important event for the Pepsi Bottling Group.
"This project," says Gursahaney, "not only turned into one of our best projects in Russia to date, it is also one of our most successful projects worldwide. Together with our local people, KHS achieved a superb feat."
This superb feat comprised much more than perfect integration of the KHS turnkey line into the production building. In constant cooperation with the Pepsi management and local Pepsi employees, KHS organised everything, including the sugar treatment, the syrup room, the water treatment plant, and the media and energy supply.
Viktor Shevtsov, vice-president of Operations Pepsi Bottling Group Russia, says, "Based on the positive experiences gained during this project it was clear that we were ready for further joint activities with KHS."
KHS will soon be installing a PET hot fill line at the Yekaterinburg site.
Maxim Atnaschev, Director of the Pepsi plant at Yekaterinburg, says, "This kind of positive cooperation is literally destined to be repeated."
With the KHS line equipment recently put into operation, the Yekaterinburg plant produces around 20 percent of the Pepsi products sold in the Russian market and covers the demand in the region.
The PET hot fill line soon to be commissioned will enable Pepsi to process Lipton iced tea at Yekaterinburg. For non-carbonated tea drinks too the motto will then be, "From the region and for the region".
Russia — a future Pepsi market Pepsi Bottling Group currently operates five plants in Russia, which are located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Yekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk.
The plans set out in 1994 have this been fulfilled. Gursahaney says, "In 1994, the Russian market was defined as a future market for Pepsi brands in addition to the Indian, Chinese, and Brazilian markets and the current investment locations for Russia were specified at the time."
The phenomenal sales growth over recent years confirmed Pepsi's high expectations for the Russian market. During the economic crisis in Russia in 1998, Pepsi only sold nine million raw cases (a raw case is equivalent to about 12 liters).
In 2000, Pepsi Bottling Group sales in the Russian market had already reached 13 million "raw cases". By 2002, sales figures had increased to 35 million raw cases.
By 2007 — believe it or not — sales had increased 105 million raw cases. For 2008, the Pepsi Bottling Group expects sales to reach around 115 millions "raw cases" in the Russian market.
Breaking down these figures into per-capita consumption reveals that every Russian citizen currently drinks around eight liters of Pepsi brand products per year, not to mention sales of the leading Russian juice producer Lebedjanski, where the Pepsi Bottling Group became the majority shareholder in 2008.
Incidentally, Lebedjanski also uses state-of-the-art KHS line equipment, with particular focus on the innovative KHS dry aseptic process.
Without taking into account Lebedjanski sales figures, with a 20.5 percent share in the Russian soft drinks market the Pepsi Bottling Group ranks just behind Coca-Cola.
Taking Lebedjanski sales into account, the Pepsi Bottling Group becomes the largest soft drinks producer in Russia.
Gursahaney is convinced that the high popularity of Pepsi products in Russian market stems, at least in part, from past events.
Pepsi began taking its first steps in 1959, the year when US Vice President Richard Nixon and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev met on the occasion of the first American trade exhibition in Moscow.
The historic "Pepsi moment" came when Khrushchev tasted the product and said, "I like it. Everyone in Russia should taste this drink, too."
1974 was a key year. A plant producing Pepsi-Cola and other products was opened at Novorossiysk near the Black Sea. PepsiCo supplied the concentrate and know-how and received vodka in return.
For a time the company was the largest U.S. distributor of Stolichnaya Vodka, the best-selling vodka brand worldwide.
In 1979 — just in time for the Olympic Games — Pepsi production started in Moscow. Then in 1986 another milestone in the history of Pepsi: The PepsiCo commercial was the first piece of western advertising on Soviet television.
In 1994, Pepsi products were bottled for the first time in PET bottles at the Ochakovo bottling plant. In 1997, Pepsi took another major historic step by opening its first own bottling plant in Russia at Samara.
Plants in Yekaterinburg and Moscow were completed in 1998, followed by another plant in St. Petersburg in 1999. In 2008, Pepsi acquired the majority shareholding in Lebedjanski, a fruit juice company that had previously produced Pepsi products under license in Novosibirsk.
Gursahaney says, "We are proud of what we have achieved. Within the Pepsi Bottling Group, Russia already ranks a good fourth place in terms of sales figures." According to Gursahaney, this healthy fourth position should by no means be regarded as static.
Next year consumption of Pepsi products in Russia is expected to overtake consumption in Canada. By 2014, consumption in Russia may well have caught up with Mexico. In view of the fact that temperatures are higher and the food is spicier in Mexico than customarily in Russia, this would be a truly remarkable result.
Popularity of Pepsi brand remains undiminished.
While the Pepsi Bottling Group produces the complete Pepsi brand range in the Russian market, the popularity of the original Pepsi brand remains undiminished. Today, approximately 30 percent of total sales are chalked up by Pepsi-Cola, Pepsi Light, Pepsi Twist, Pepsi Lemon, Pepsi X, and Wild Cherry Pepsi.
The second most popular brand is Aqua Minerale (carbonated, still, and flavored) with around 25 percent, followed by Lipton iced tea varieties with a share of 17 per cent. Overall, the Pepsi Bottling Group produces around 35 different products for the Russian market.
Eighty-five percent of the brand range in PET containers In the meantime, most products are sold in PET bottles, which now have an 85-per cent share of total sales, compared with glass bottles at around 2 percent, and cans at approximately 13 per cent.
Three types of PET bottle The Pepsi Bottling Group relies on three different types of PET bottle in the Russian market: 2-liter, 1.25-liter, and 0.6-liter bottles.
The best-seller is the 2-liter PET bottle with around 48 percent, closely followed by the 0.6-liter variety with around 40 per cent.
Gursahaney says, "The Russian market increasingly appreciates the great convenience offered by the 0.6-liter PET bottle. We see scope for further growth in this area."
In view of the expected further increase in demand for 0.6-iter PET bottles, the new KHS line at the Yekaterinburg plant was especially configured for processing 0.6-liter and 1.25-liter PET bottles, while an existing line only handles 2-liter PET bottles.
The bottle varieties were subjected to comprehensive tests at the Bottles & Shapes Technical Center operated by PET specialists KHS Corpoplast, resulting in better material distribution and weight reduction — prerequisites for savings in material and lower energy consumption during bottle production.
This optimisation also led to a revised design for the PET preform, the precisely defined specification of which formed the basis for the production of new tools for bottle production using a blow molding process. New KHS turnkey focuses on 0.6-liter PET bottles
The new KHS line is able to bottle 60,000 0.6-liter PET bottles per hour, or 45,000 1.25-liter PET bottles per hour. Shortly after commissioning, the line had already reached 85 percent efficiency.
Atnaschev says, "This is a terrific achievement for a line that has only just been put into operation. We expect the efficiency to exceed the 90-percent mark soon."
The first station of the line is comprised of two KHS Corpoplast BLOMAX stretch blow molders, which are automatically fed with preforms stored in bulk containers.
Each blow molder has 18 cavities. Each of these cavities can produce up to 1,800 PET bottles per hour, resulting in a total hourly capacity of 32,400 PET bottles per blow molder.
A brief description of the PET bottle production process: The PET preforms are heated in the oven of the stretch blow molder based on a precisely defined temperature profile and then mechanically stretched and simultaneously inflated with compressed air in the molds of the blow stations.
After leaving the mold, the PET bottles are turned and transferred to an air conveyor. Each of the two blow molders is connected to its own air conveyor, which normally feeds the PET bottles to the roll-fed labeling machine dedicated to the respective air conveyor.
"Normally", because if necessary, the system offers options for transferring freshly blow-molded PET bottles from blow molder 1 or 2 to labeling machine 2 or 1 via switching units integrated into the air conveyors.
This is useful if one of the labeling machines is temporarily unavailable due to changeover to new parameters. In this case, the sophisticated switching units enable both blow molders to continue operating at only slightly reduced speed, since each labeling machine is designed for a capacity of up to 60,000 0.6-liter PET bottles per hour.
The air conveyor implemented is an Innoline LTR. It regulates PET bottle conveying reliably and gently by means of neck handling while maintaining best possible hygienic conditions.
Several special radial blowers integrated in the air duct of the air conveyor ensures reduced flow loss and minimum energy consumption. Specially shaped louvers also drastically reduce the amount of air needed for conveying.
A row of louvers arranged along the sides effectively prevents air from being blown directly into bottle mouths. The conveying speed can be adjusted as required by frequency control.
It is interesting to note that the Pepsi Bottling Group commissioned KHS to design a special structure that is integrated in the building and supported on columns for suspending the air conveyors. The aim was to offer good access to all system components integrated below the air conveyors.
KHS came up with a design that met the requirements of the Pepsi Bottling Group. The structure for this "special Pepsi solution" weighs almost 100 tons, including the actual air conveyors.
Pepsi Bottling Group's decision to label the bottles using a roll-fed machine before the filling process was intentional. The labels are applied while the PET bottles are under pressure. This prevents the label from creasing, and pressure points from forming on the PET bottles.
Rinser-filler-capper monoblock with many special technical features After the labeling process, the PET bottles enter the KHS rinser-filler-capper monoblock, which, for reasons of hygiene, is located in a separate room and is characterized by many special technical features.
The Innofill DRV-VF is a computer-controlled volumetric filling system. Only two pneumatic cylinders per filling valve are used for bottling carbonated beverages.
These two pneumatic cylinders control the entire filling process — including lifting the bottle and sealing the bottle mouth against the filling valve. Using only two switching functions is made possible by transmitting the counter-pressure to the neck ring holder by means of an aseptic-compliant expansion bellows.
This means that the force of the counter-pressure is also used to press the PET bottle against the filling valve. An additional pneumatic cylinder is used if the Innofill DRV is used for filling non-carbonated beverages. A push of a button is all that it takes to switch to the pressureless filling process
The Innofill DRV uses a swirler for filling, which offers significant benefits. Apart from eliminating spreading elements protruding into the bottle, the advantage of the swirler is the high level of filling flexibility achieved.
The swirler makes it possible to fill a wide variety of bottle shapes and sizes without any changeover work. Another special feature of the filling system: CIP sanitising. Here, the filling valves are sealed by so-called CIP plates, which are simply inserted into a groove in the bottle holder underneath the filling valve. The same method used for bottle pressing is also used for CIP sanitising.
The filling valves are automatically sealed and adapted to the interior pressure according to the pressure of the rinsing media.
The Innofill DRV-VF is equipped with a tubular ring bowl with the advantage of having no corners or edges. The lightweight construction also reduces the driving forces needed and thus decreases the power consumption and the cost of maintenance.
An upstream Innoclean FR-EM rinser is contained in the monoblock with the filling system. This mechanically controlled single-channel rinser sprays the bottles out with beverage quality water. After the rinsing process, an Innofill SV capper applies screw caps to the freshly filled PET bottles.
The Pepsi Bottling Group intentionally decided in favor of the integrated KHS process engineering concept. "All from one source" was the motto that avoids interface problems right from the start.
The KHS equipment starts in the syrup room with the sugar treatment using a dissolver and sugar pasteuriser, followed by storage of the liquid sugar and mixing in a batchmix system. This is followed by storage in mixing tanks.
The two-component Innopro PARAMIX CMX mixer then handles the task of continuously producing carbonated Pepsi brand products and integrates the water and syrup component deaeration, dosing, and mixing processing steps, and subsequent carbonating in a single unit.
First, the water is degassed using a two-stage vacuum spray method. Syrup is then continuously added to water inline, exactly controlled by precise flowmetering of both media according to the ratio of ingredients specified in the recipe.
The carbonating process, likewise inline, takes place under constant pressure, and guarantees gentle, no-foam saturation. Exact compliance of the Brix and CO2 values with the product specification for the Pepsi brand products ensured by the implemented measuring instrumentation.
After the capping process and filling level and cap checking, the PET bottles move onto a buffer table. This KHS buffer system ensures gentle handling of the containers and optimum utilisation of the production space. Several drives ensure an optimum scaling down of the conveying speed and a low-pressure transfer of the PET bottles onto the buffer system outfeed.
If PET bottle accumulation becomes necessary, then the pressure is relieved by gently pushing the bottles onto reduced-speed or stationary conveyor belts.
An Innopack PSP 080 V pad-shrink packer can handle one-lane or two-lane operation for packing the PET bottles.
In addition to pure shrink packs, the Innopack PSP is also able to set up pad-shrink packs. In the pad-shrink packer, the PET bottles, distributed into lanes by funnel-shaped guide rails according to the accumulation principle as they enter the machine, are first divided into the specified product groups by a servo-controlled grouping unit.
The product groups are then fed to a drag chain to bring the PET bottle formations in the machine pitch. If pad-shrink packs are to be formed, the formations are guided to meet the pads.
The units now pass to the film cutting station where the film is fed by a vacuum conveyor from the bottom part of the machine: the product formation area. The film wrapping process is adapted to the respective product heights and lengths of the packs to be wrapped.
After they are wrapped in film, the packs — regardless if pure shrink packs or pad shrink packs — move over a speed compensation belt directly into the shrink tunnel.
Simultaneous palletizing on two pallets Before the actual palletizing process, two articulated robots set up the layer formations for shrink or pad-shrink packs.
An Innopal PBN 2 robot takes care of palletizing the products on two pallets, followed by a stretch-film wrapping machine to secure the load for shipment. Cooperation based on partnership as it should be
Gursahaney says, "I can only repeat what I said earlier: KHS delivered a stunning performance, and not just during line assembly and commissioning, but right up to the present day.
This is cooperation based on partnership as it should be."
In view of the high degree of satisfaction it is hardly surprising that KHS was also entrusted with the next project at Yekaterinburg, a hot fill line mainly intended for Lipton iced tea.
And it is hardly surprising that identical KHS machines will be used wherever possible. This time it will be a KHS Corpoplast BLOMAX 24 HR (heat resistant) stretch blow molder that uses a special process to produce heat-resistant PET bottles for hot filling.
The key is to avoid deformation of the PET bottles during filling. Here too, the Bottles & Shapes Technical Center in Hamburg was able to satisfy the requirements of the Pepsi Bottling Group. Findings from studies relating to the filling method and the bottle design were combined to develop a specially shaped hot fill bottle without the typical "vacuum panels".
The filling system is once again an Innofill DRV, this time with integrated hot fill option.
Atnaschev says, "In addition to the fact that the existing KHS machines represent outstanding technical solutions, the use of identical or similar components makes it easier for our machine operators to familiarise themselves with the equipment."
Shevtsov says, "It is worth mentioning that the Pepsi Bottling Group will be the first company to use the innovative hot fill technology in Russia."
One of the reasons for Pepsi Bottling Group to adopt the new technology is that the company expects significant growth in the segment of non-carbonated beverages such as Lipton iced tea in the near future.
Gursahaney says, "We see a trend towards non-carbonated, alcohol-free beverages in the Russian market. Naturally, we would like to cut a big slice out of that growth market."
The Pepsi Bottling Group also intends to continue taking a big slice of the market for carbonated soft drinks. By 2014, the Pepsi Bottling Group aims to increase total sales in Russia to 300 millions "raw cases".
Shevtsov says, "This goal is achievable. Investments in further lines at existing locations and the scheduled construction of two new plants in Moscow and Rostov will create the required technical capacities.
In addition, we are considering expansion options at St. Petersburg and in the Siberian market."
Gursahaney adds, smiling: "If all our future plans are as successful as our cooperation with KHS, what can possibly go wrong for Pepsi in the Russian market?"
Add a comment