B L Agro Oils installs new Sidel PET bottling line

According to Sidel, this is the first ever Sidel complete PET bottling line for edible oil in the South East Asia Pacific region.

 

The Sidel line operates at 400 bottles per minute or 24,000 bottles per hour, meaning a production speed up to 120% higher than B L Agro Oils' existing lines. It features a Combi, labeller, bottle and pack conveyor, case erector, case sealer, case packer and palletiser.

 

Ashish Khandelwal, executive director at B L Agro, said, "We knew of Sidel's excellent reputation in liquid packaging and it was a natural choice for us to speak to them when we decided to develop our capabilities in bottling our edible oil in PET."

 

According to Sidel, by incorporating a Combi, the new complete line is not bound by the limitations imposed by air conveyors because of the neck-handling and positive transfer of bottles between blow moulding and filling, expanding the possibilities for bottle shapes and light weighting. 

 

This has enabled B L Agro Oils to achieve significant weight savings on all of the bottle formats produced so far. The 200ml bottles have been reduced by almost 17% (from 12g to 10g); the 500ml bottles by more than 20% (from 18g to 14g); and the 1-litre bottles by 14% (from 28g to 24g). 

 

It is currently producing 200ml, 500ml and 1l formats for various products within the B L Agro Oils range, including its flagship brand, the Bail Kolhu Kachchi Ghani mustard oil.

 

Additionally, the company is working with Sidel to develop completely new 2l and 5l formats with new bottle designs.

 

Khandelwal said, "Testing how our oils performed in PET and in different environmental conditions allowed us to arrive at the optimum packaging solution for our products.”

 

"PET allows us to maintain the taste of our oils - especially important to our Bail Kolhu Kachchi Ghani mustard oil which has a particularly distinctive taste - as well as their nutritional properties through the vitamins and minerals they contain."

 

B L Agro Oils produces 50-60% of India's total production of mustard oil. It has a total production capacity of 250,000 tonnes per year across the company's two main sites: one in Parsakhera with three production lines and one in Jauharpur with a single line.