Packaging

riha invests in cold-aseptics and a high-bay warehouse for its Spanish facility

Wednesday 14. January 2009 - Ever since 1994, the German riha WeserGold Group has been operating the Agrozumos facility in Lekunberri, a town in the Spanish province of Navarre, founded back in 1981 as a bottler of juices and squashes, most of them in soft packages.

riha WeserGold is now upgrading the facility to incorporate an aseptic PET bottling capability and a fully automated high-bay warehouse. For both these projects, Krones has been awarded the entire job package.

For cold-aseptic filling of still (or carbonated) juices and squashes in PET containers, riha WeserGold opted for a dry sterilisation process, so as to minimise water consumption. Krones is supplying an H2O2 system with the entire peripherals, a Sleevematic and a Contiroll labeller, plus a Variopac Pro packer, and pallet conveyors for linking up to the material flow system.

Krones is supplying an automated APW high-bay warehouse system featuring 14,000 europallet slots and five storage and retrieval units. 165 pallets an hour can be provided at the loading zone. The entire project, for a rating of 24,000 containers an hour, is set to go into operation early in 2009.