Taken into their own hands

Whereas its filled beer cans were previously imported, Carlsberg has now had its own line in Blagoevgrad for the first time since January 2023. Delivered and installed by KHS, the system has the capacity to fill up to 40,000 500- and 550-milliliter or 60,000 330-milliliter cans per hour. Stoyanov is extremely pleased with the new line. “We need far less room for can filling than we do for filling PET and glass bottles. Given the limited space available to us, that’s one advantage, of course. What’s more, the KHS machines are less complex, making them easier to both operate and maintain. Production thus runs smoothly and without any issues. I’m particularly delighted with the high level of efficiency: we achieve an OEE of 76%,” Stoyanov smiles.

The entire installation process also ran efficiently despite rather adverse circumstances. “The project began during the aftermath of the Covid pandemic when there were lots of supply chain challenges,” Stoyanov recalls. “KHS was an extremely well-organized and reliable partner for us here. Once the parts had all been delivered, the schedule for installation and commissioning was precisely adhered to, even though at the same time we still had to complete our new production shop.”

Reliable and efficient

Unlike most canning lines, which use tunnel pasteurizers for microbiological safety, the Bulgarian site consciously opted for the KHS Innopro KZE flash pasteurizer. “We don’t can any sensitive beverages that we’d need a tunnel pasteurizer for,” explains Stoyanov. “Thanks to our high hygiene standards during the filling process, we’re instead able to use a flash pasteurizer on all of our systems. This improves the taste of our products. It also takes up far less space. And thanks to the faster heat transfer, we use less energy.” Stoyanov is generally very enthusiastic about the overall extremely low energy consumption of the new line. All performance values also exactly meet his expectations, as he’s pleased to discover.

Condensation avoided – quality and hygiene assured

Following the filling process, the cans pass through the KHS Innopas WICG compact heater. Frank Schneidermann, global key account manager at KHS, explains the reason for this. “The containers are filled with cold beer at a temperature of 8 to 10°C. Our compact heater raises their temperature to 20 to 28°C to prevent the formation of condensation. This can dampen the cardboard used for the trays and layer pads on the pallets, potentially leading to unhygienic mold growth. Wet cardboard can also make the pallets less stable and put their proper storage and safe transportation at risk. Given the increasingly demanding nature of logistics processes, this is an important topic – including at Carlsberg Bulgaria, where after coming off the line, the packs are transported by pallet lift to a storage area located four meters below the production shop.”

Long-term functionality

To ensure that the machines remain fully functional over time, a three-year service contract was also entered into. This includes both predictive maintenance and ReDiS, the remote service that makes it possible to directly and quickly eliminate faults, even from afar – without needing a KHS service engineer to be physically present on site.

“The reliable and continual support that we receive from the KHS Service team is extremely important to us. After all, we’re new to the world of can filling and using our technology partner’s expertise we’re first safeguarding our production processes,” emphasizes Stoyanov. Although training is part of the service package, he’s convinced that his operators will learn the most by looking over the shoulders of KHS’ service engineers and putting their acquired theoretical knowledge into practice.