Sidel celebrates 40 years of blowing and packaging expertise for PET containers

Guillaume Rolland, Vice President for PET and Sensitive Products Portfolio at Sidel, explains the key values that underpin the development of EvoBLOW™, the latest generation blowmoulder by Sidel: "Throughout all the advances in equipment and packaging innovations, our underlying objectives are answering industry requirements in terms of best in class product integrity and superior package quality as well as providing maximum efficiency, lower total cost of ownership and sustainable competitiveness. Another key target is to ensure optimised production flexibility allowing easy handling of multiple SKUs and focusing on energy savings and the reduction of raw materials’ consumption to minimise the environmental impact."  

To make the most of the EvoBLOW, its integrated equipment intelligence and very responsive management lead to continuous production optimisation and easier maintenance services. It combines reactive automation with innovative technologies of connected machines and real-time data analytics. Unparalleled bottle quality can be reached with the patented blowing process control and self-regulation solution: IntelliBLOWER™. It automatically detects and eliminates bottle process deviations to ensure production consistency and quality. Simplified and intuitive operator interventions, smart notifications for better reactivity, and reduced maintenance time contribute to improve productivity as well.

Expanding packaging innovation and performance boundaries

From process perspective to machine configurations, Sidel offers the highest level of blowing configurability to ensure the most tailored solutions as regards specific market needs. Available as a stand-alone or integrated machine, it can be combined with other functionalities like filling and capping in Combi Blow Fill for all types of processes (regular, aseptic and ultra-clean with Predis™ dry preform sterilisation, heat resistant blowing and hot filling, preferential heating for flat containers). It can also be combined with labelling and filling, as in the Super Combi, an all-in-one, smart solution for production of water and carbonated soft drinks. Also, it can be associated with the Actis™ plasma-coating and filling solution to extend beverages’ shelf life and enable package lightweighting while the Combi Blow Deco ensures fast, safe manufacturing and decoration of empty containers.

Uncompromised packaging quality across PET, ref-PET and r-PET

Sidel’s blowing technology has always met the changing needs of consumers as well as environmental challenges. In addition to work on reducing energy and consumption of raw materials to a minimum, Sidel has always been working to keep the blowing process as optimised as possible to deliver the best bottle quality and performance for all types of PET resins – virgin and recycled PET (r-PET), one-way and refillable PET (ref-PET), transparent and opaque, monolayer and multilayer.

Due to legislation that helps reducing consumption of plastic raw materials and, thus, the carbon footprint, the ref-PET and the r-PET bottles have been becoming more and more popular sustainable plastic packaging alternatives in the recent years. In the production of ref-PET bottles, Sidel has been the right partner to deliver refill blowing processes for more than 30 years. The specific heat-resistance blowing process ensures optimal packaging specifications to sustain the structure of the ref-PET bottle across many uses and withstanding the durability tests (washing cycles). The unique Sidel electrical mould heating allows a very accurate blowing process, ensuring highly consistent ref-PET bottle quality. This can also be combined with Sidel capabilities in bottle designs, in-house washing evaluations for refillable bottles, ref-PET sorting line engineering and very sustainable bottle washer solutions (Swing™ range).