Savings through HotFill+ technology

The HotFill⁺ system developed by KHS GmbH enables hot filling of sensitive products into PET bottles avoiding vacuum compensation panels. The idea behind this innovation came from Rajendra Gursahaney, Senior Director of Engineering, Pepsi Beverages Company.

When a brand of Lipton Ice Tea without any preservatives was to be introduced to the Russian market, he decided to use hot filling technology, but without vacuum compensation panels, because they made the bottles heavier and thus more expensive.

His idea was to dose freshly filled, classic PET bottles with nitrogen to compensate for any shrinking of the PET bottles after hot filling, thus making vacuum compensation panels superfluous. After six months of trials at the KHS Corpoplast laboratory, the desired results were achieved which have since proved themselves in practice.

Gursahaney now looks back on two years of experience with the HotFill⁺ process and is extremely satisfied: On the KHS line in Yekaterinburg, which operates on HotFill⁺ technology, each year 2.5 million dollars in costs for PET bottles are saved, due to a weight reduction from 63 to 48 gram per 1.5 litre PET bottle. In addition, the absence of a vacuum panel allows better label application, thus facilitating various marketing purposes.

Pepsi decided not to patent the HotFill⁺ process just for themselves but to share the benefits of this technology with others to do something positive for the environment.