Filling spring water at record speed

Each day, when in Sydney, Sam Mishler walks the production hall at Nu-Pure Beverages in Horsley Park, an industrial suburb of Sydney. In this roughly 20,000-square-meter facility, bottles are filled with spring water and then labeled and packaged. For Mishler, who is Vice President Country Manager for Australia, these daily rounds are more than just a routine. “I want to see first-hand that we’re operating efficiently and safely.” For Nu‑Pure, performance is not simply a matter of checking KPIs. Mishler stresses that “These numbers only happen if we take ownership of our processes.” And it’s that sense of responsibility that makes him especially pleased with the Horsley Park site: “Across Nu‑Pure’s operations, teams take ownership of both challenges and successes – from machine operators through to shift supervisors.”

Horsley Park is Nu-Pure Beverages’ fourth and newest facility. National Manufacturing Manager Ryan Oxley was part of the plant’s construction and commissioning from the beginning and, as plant manager, played an important role in the process. “We literally built this plant from nothing,” he recalls. The timing – in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic – presented a particular challenge. Container deliveries stalled, and many materials simply could not be imported. The team had to improvise and find their own solutions. Sam Mishler points out that this very situation made the Horsley Park team stronger: With little outside help, the employees learned to act on their own initiative, understand processes and take responsibility. These are skills that make the plant particularly capable and independent today.

Of course, it helps to have dependable engineering partners. Almost all of the technology in use here came from Krones. For Nu-Pure Beverages, this partnership is crucial. Over the years, a strategic collaboration has developed based on mutual trust and long-standing loyalty. “From planning through engineering and development, Krones has been with us every step of the way, helping ensure we can meet the needs of our customers,” explains Sam Mishler. And Krones has remained a dependable partner after each commissioning as well, providing training, technical support and after-sales services and thus substantially helping to keep operations running smoothly.

At first, just one Krones line was in use at Horsley Park. Now, a second line has been added, equipped with a brand-new ErgoBloc L, a wet-end block comprising a stretch blow molder, labeler and filler. Additionally, it is equipped with inspection systems, packer and palletizer. The new line enables record speeds of up to 100,000 PET bottles per hour, making it the fastest filling line in all of Australia. It complements the site’s existing 60,000-bph PET line.

The main objective of this investment was to substantially increase the plant’s production capacity so as to meet rising demand and reliably supply the east coast of Australia with premium spring water. “We were initially considering the 72,000-bph ErgoBloc,” recalls Sidharth Raghu, National Engineering Manager, who by the way was the very first employee at the Horsley Park site. “We then compared the 85,000 and 100,000-bph lines and concluded that the increased efficiency of the 100,000-bph block would quickly make up for the higher initial cost.” This is where the advantages of the company’s partnership with Niagara really came into play. Niagara advised Nu-Pure Beverages to go with the 100,000-bph model and helped fund the investment.

This new line – the eighth Krones line for Nu-Pure Beverages – was successfully commissioned in October 2025. Preparations went according to plan: the machines and conveyor systems were optimally set up so that the first filling run could start right on schedule. As is usual when commissioning complex filling lines, there was still some fine-tuning to do once regular operations were underway. Temporary starts and stops and a gradual ramp-up to target production rates were, of course, part of the start-up phase. What really made the difference was the constructive collaboration among everyone involved: the experts from Nu-Pure Beverages, Niagara and Krones analyzed the various processes together and systematically optimized them. “In the end, we gained valuable insights for our daily operations – and that benefits everyone,” concludes Sam Mishler.

Today, the line reliably fills 100,000 bottles per hour. It processes five different bottle formats with a particular focus on round, 600-milliliter bottles. But high speed isn’t its only advantage. “This line has enabled us to further reduce bottle weight without compromising performance or quality,” explains Sam Mishler. A concerted focus on lightweight design has brought the PET weight of the 600-milliliter bottle down to an impressive 8.59 grams, demonstrating industry‑leading lightweight bottle design for still water in Australia.

When Sam Mishler walks through the production hall, he is especially pleased by the sight of the blow molder, which he describes as a “real gem”. That’s because the version of the ErgoBloc L chosen by Nu-Pure works with two fillers running in parallel, both of which are supplied by the same, single blow molder. “The bottles run through the line at high speed – it’s almost like it never stops. The bottles being blow-molded at high speed looks astonishingly simple.” In November 2025, Nu-Pure shipped out the first bottles from the new line – right on time for the summer high season. Since then, the line has supported Nu‑Pure’s ability to deliver consistent quality, efficiency and innovation for customers nationwide.