Benefits of new labelling achieved in just five days for Maltese producer

A project for the General Soft Drinks Co Ltd (GSD) of Malta, the country's sole licensed bottler of Coca-Cola products, has demonstrated the capacity to add new technology to an existing line with minimum disruption following the installation of a new Rollquattro rolled labelled in only five days.

The decision to acquire the new Rollquattro labelling machine from Sidel the world's leading global provider of PET solutions for liquid packaging was taken after GSD had considered the retrofitting of an existing rollfed labeller. "With the high season about to start, we consulted Sidel - originally to have our existing Rollquattro rollfed labeller retrofitted with all the relevant upgrades," commented Brian Galea, Technical Manager at GSD.  "Sidel undertook a careful evaluation of the whole situation on our behalf. When they presented the results of this thorough analysis and the comparable improvements we would likely be faced with by investing in the new machine, we quickly saw the value and sense of the option that they were suggesting, particularly when we realised the potential for installing it in such a short timeframe" he continued.

Staying competitive in a cost-driven market

Within the local bottled water market Malta effectively competes with neighbouring Italy, a country with an annual bottled water per capita consumption of 176 litres.  Water volume sales for the whole of Italy - one of the largest producers of bottled water in the world - totalled 11 billion litres in 2014 according to reports by market analyst Euromonitor. Italians and Maltese generally treat mineral water as an everyday drink, rather than a luxury item.  However, the number of competing brands inevitably results in a fiercely tough marketplace where the price is driven low and great profitability is difficult to achieve.  GSD is consequently run on measurable performance indicators that are regularly monitored to ensure every aspect of production is kept competitive and profitable.  This naturally includes the performance of any labelling equipment involved in the process.