Tetra Pak®, the world leader in food processing and packaging solutions, today announces that its Tetra Pak A3/ Speed filling machine for Tetra Prisma® Aseptic portion packs has been successfully deployed with its first customer - Mengniu, a leading Chinese dairy.
Running at a speed of 24,000 packs per hour, or approximately seven packs per second, Tetra Pak A3/ Speed is one of the world's fastest filling machine for carton packages, pushing operational cost down by as much as 35%.
Mengniu's decision to purchase Tetra Pak A3/ Speed in November 2012 was based on a successful field test and the need to respond to the rising demand for its premium flavoured milk, Latte. The company was running two filling machines at full capacity in 2012, delivering an annual output of 94 million packs, but was still not able to keep up with demand.
"Within ten months of installing the first Tetra Pak A3/ Speed, 100 million packages had been produced on a single line, and we were able to reduce the overall operational cost for Latte by 20% in comparison with low speed filling machines. Based on these results, we made the decision to order three more lines," said Gao Jianjun, Factory Manager of Mengniu Dairy Plant in Ma'anshan City.
The installation of Tetra Pak A3/ Speed enabled Mengniu to triple its line productivity, which greatly increased its production capacity.
"We are committed to supporting customers' growth with solutions that bring outstanding performance. We look forward to seeing success with more customers," commented Trevor Eastwood, Product Platform Director at Tetra Pak.
Tetra Pak A3/ Speed is available in three versions, designed for Tetra Prisma Aseptic portion packs running at 24,000 packs per hour, Tetra Prisma Aseptic and Tetra Brik Aseptic family packs running at 15,000 packs per hour, and Tetra Brik® Aseptic portion packages running at 24,000 packs per hour. The machine is based on the Tetra Pak A3 platform, which is designed as an integrated component of Tetra Pak's fully automated iLine™ offer.