Inspection technology for spirits bottling

The Swedish vodka producer Absolut has installed a complete Krones wet end including a Checkmat inspector with camera technology for inspection of the label position.

• The rotary Checkmat 731 inspects the bottles using a camera or sensor system and recognizes characters, label position, date-stamping and barcode. Besides the classical cold-glue and wrap-around labels, it detects sleeves, pressure-sensitive labels and reflecting foil.

Jinro Ltd., Korea, is one of the world’s biggest spirits producers. The product portfolio includes, among other things, Korea’s national drink soju, whisky, plus ginseng and plum liqueurs.
At two facilities, Krones has installed two bottling lines, each rated at 60,000 bph.  A Toptronic empty bottle inspector 719-M2 checks the empty bottles:

• The Toptronic – a rotary machine – exels in terms of absolutely precise bottle guidance. The standard equipment is base inspection unit, neck-finish inspection unit and residual liquid detection unit. Optionally available for retrofitting are sidewall, inner sidewall, screw thread, lateral neck-finish and foreign container inspection units.

The fastest whisky bottling line in the world is currently up and running at Diageo’s facility in Shieldhall, a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. Installed as a turnkey job by Krones, the line is rated at 36,000 bph, and incorporates a Linatronic FBI full-bottle inspector, for example.

• The linear structure of the Linatronic permits free selection of the inspection units for detection of horizontal and suspended foreign objects, inspection of the base and the fill level, the cap design check.