UK-based food packaging firm Rapak is providing Dayla Liquid Packing, the UK's largest independent bag in box filler, with sterile filling equipment. The two Intasept lines form the central part of Dayla's new €2.9 million purpose-built factory in Ross on Wye, which handles products including fruit juices, vegetable juices, soft drink syrups and sauces. The lines fill a wide variety of pack sizes up to 200 litres.
There has been increasing emphasis on preservative-free products within the European food and drink industry, with firms looking to technology to help ensure food safety and longer shelf-life. Rapak claims that the Intasept system ensures the total sterile transfer of product from filler to bag, which can maximise ambient shelf life to in excess of six months.
Intasept bags feature a unique patented double membrane technology, which means that they are manufactured fully sealed with minimum air content. The bags are then gamma irradiated for absolute sterility.
The double membrane on the bags ensures complete tamper evidence both before and after filling. The transfer area is fully sterilised before the first membrane is pierced. This creates the smallest sterile transfer area in bag-in-box filling technology to ensure a completely aseptic transfer of products.
Sterilisation is accomplished using only steam, eliminating the need for chemical sterilants and therefore offering environmental benefits. In addition, the steam inlet is specially designed to safeguard the quality of the product.
"The benefits of bag-in-box for our type of products are numerous," said Dayla managing director Ian Jenkins. "It provides an efficient and convenient ambient distribution format, which then becomes an equally effective dispensing system. It offers excellent product protection, infinite branding possibilities, convenient storage, and is totally user-friendly.
"Intasept is a highly effective and efficient system that provides us with total reliability. Since the installation of the first line, we have not had a single bag failure due to the system."
Intasept also enables Dayla to offer a valuable testing service for customers, allowing low-volume aseptic trials to be carried out on new product developments. This provides companies with the necessary data and feedback to make a decision on whether to implement a full launch programme.
"A key feature of many of the products we develop and pack is high value," said Jenkins. "This ties in perfectly with both Dayla's and Intasept's offer to customers."
Rapak is part of DS Smith Plastics, which reported a turnover last year of €265 million. The group operates from locations in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, USA, Dominican Republic, Israel and Australasia.