Sidel delivers Britannia’s first-ever aseptic PET packaging line

Britannia Industries, one of India’s leading food companies, selected packaging experts Sidel to deliver its first-ever aseptic PET packaging line for its dairy drinks portfolio. This strategic partnership enabled Britannia to scale its dairy beverage brand presence under the Winkin’ Cow portfolio.

Britannia entered the dairy drinks business in 2018, with value-added dairy drinks under the Winkin’ Cow portfolio. Britannia made a strategic decision to partner with Sidel, a global leader in packaging innovation with five decades of expertise in aseptic PET packaging. The objective was to deliver a complete aseptic PET packaging solution at Britannia’s greenfield dairy factory in Ranjangaon, Maharashtra, India.

“Sidel offered Britannia end-to-end support, enabling them to unlock the full potential of their dairy beverage,” comments Harbinder Kathuria, vice-president, Sales, South Asia. “From bottle and label design to product-packaging validation, the line has empowered Britannia to expand its dairy beverage portfolio and offer safe, high-quality products with enhanced packaging flexibility to Indian consumers since 2023.”

Sidel’s aseptic global expertize

As technology and solutions partner, Sidel supported Britannia throughout the entire journey, taking care to always meet their expectations and timing. From the initial line design and technical planning to the installation, commissioning and final ramp-up, this close partnership ensured a smooth, efficient and fully aligned execution throughout the entire process. 

“The support from Sidel wasn’t limited to the line equipment; it went much further,” explains Abhishek Sinha, chief sales transformation officer, Britannia (formerly CBO – Dairy & CEO, BBFPL). “Sidel offered a comprehensive range of services, including new packaging concept design, packaging validation, label recommendations, custom filling tests and shelf-life studies. They provided everything we needed to enter the aseptic PET segment and bring our new product to market with maximum confidence.”

Simplest and fastest aseptic solution

To ensure the highest levels of food safety, Sidel installed a complete line with integrated Aseptic Combi Predis at the Britannia plant. The solution, running at 24,000 bph, integrates preform sterilisation, blow moulding, filling and capping into a unique process that ensures product integrity and a longer shelf life for sensitive products.

Aseptic Combi Predis is the market’s simplest and fastest aseptic solution with Predis™ dry preform decontamination. Predis technology employs the injection of Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into the preform just before it enters the oven. This results in activation of the H2O2 by the existing preform heating stage, ensuring a high level of decontamination while minimising the sterile zone and controlling all risk of potential contamination. Critical parameters are continuously monitored to ensure full production sterility, beverage integrity and food safety, regardless of liquid type or beverage characteristics.

Simple, flexible and sustainable

Sidel’s Aseptic Combi Predis is extremely easy to use, allowing the operator to manage the sterilisation process without the need for extensive training or lengthy downtimes. It is also exceptionally flexible, offering the ability to switch between three different formats for dairy drinks – from 180ml to 1L – while maintaining the highest levels of efficiency.

By employing dry preform decontamination, no water and almost no chemicals are used in the process. This significantly reduces water and chemical consumption, allowing Britannia to reach total food safety using fewer resources and with a lower impact on the environment.

Aseptic Combi Predis also facilitates the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) without compromising food safety or production simplicity, while delivering high uptime and packaging versatility across multiple SKUs.