How Does a Bottling Plant Work?

When you go to the supermarket and buy a bottle of soft drink, or buy a cleaner in a plastic spray bottle or some fertilizer for your garden in a large jug – do you ever wonder how those substances got into their containers? When it comes to large capacity contract bottling, this is done by a liquid filling production line at a bottling company.

What is a Bottling Company?

This is a commercial enterprise that makes a business of bottling beverages or other liquids for distribution. Many contract packing bottling companies will be franchisees for larger corporations, such as Pepsi or Coca-Cola and they will be responsible for distributing the beverage in a specific geographic region. Other bottling companies might bottle other local beverages such as regional wines and beers.

A bottling plant will have several liquid filling production lines that are able to accommodate short and flexible runs of production as well as other longer, more efficient and standardized runs.

Liquid Filling Machines

The work of filling up all of those bottles is done by a liquid filling machine. This is a machine that is designed to place the liquid within the container in a fast and efficient assembly line fashion.

There is no one type of filling machine that will be able to handle any type of liquid across all industries. For example, a machine that fills bottles of window cleaner could not handle cosmetic cream or bottled water.

A chemical grade filling machine would not be used to fill dairy products, or pharmaceuticals. In order to fill corrosive liquids, a special type of filling machine must be used that has a resistant coating on all machinery components.

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The type of filling machine that is used will depend on many factors, such as the temperature, viscosity, chemical compatibility, hazardous environment considerations, size of the particulates and other characteristics of the liquid being filled.

There are a number of different styles of filling machines designed to suit a range of liquids, from overflow style liquid filling machines which are usually used for small bottles and thin liquids to servo pump style liquid filling machines that are used for a wide range of liquids including oil, soap, grease, sauces, cosmetics, salsa and more.

When it comes to packaging liquids such as essential oils, fragrances, inks, dyes and chemicals, the peristaltic style liquid filling machine is often used as it employs surgical tubing as the fluid path. There are also time gravity liquid filling machines that are only suited to liquids with a very thin viscosity which will not change with the ambient temperature or have any variation in the batch.

If you will be packing a very thick and viscous product such as a paste, a salad dressing, heavy sauces, shampoo, conditioner, gel or cosmetic cream, it is necessary to use a piston liquid filling machine.

This type of machine uses pistons to suck the product into the cylinder in order to dispense the right amount into the container. The piston liquid filling technology can also be used for chemical preparations such as greases, epoxys, waxes and paste cleaners.

When it comes to filling liquids in very large quantities, a net weigh liquid filling machine is often used. This includes oils, cleaning chemicals and other products that are sold by weight. The weight of the liquid is being measured as the container is being filled and the machine will automatically shut off when it reaches the correct weight so that any overfilling is completely avoided.

With the use of the right bottling equipment, a bottling plant can fill any type of liquid in any container, so that it can be mass produced and sold.

   Chris Hoole

About the Author:

Chris Hoole is a freelance writer who grew up near a bottling plant and was always fascinated by contract packing, contract bottling and the other bottling operations that went on there.