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Hoffer Supplies 3A Sanitary Flowmeters for “Bag-in-a-Box”
Beverage Industry
Thousands of bag-in-a-box beverage containers are filled daily
throughout the country and total millions of gallons per year.
These boxes are, in turn, distributed to wholesaler operations
and various “fountain” sales groups.
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Hoffer Flow Controls turbine flowmeters play a key role
in many of the bag-in-a-box production plants throughout
the beverage industry. Our 3A Series, sanitary turbine
flowmeters, along with a batch controller are used to
batch a specific amount of the beverage product into
a container. The typical filling process incorporates
a conveyer system and a filling station. The Hoffer
turbine flowmeter has been used to batch numerous beverages
including concentrated Coca-Cola syrup. In this application,
two flowmeters are used for batching one part concentrated
syrup to five parts water.
In addition to metering the beverage product, the turbine
flowmeters are exposed to regular “clean in place”
(CIP) scenarios. The filling station may be cleaned
with hot water, steam, or a suitable CIP fluid including
caustics and acid based solutions. The flowmeter design
and materials must be suitable for the filling application,
as well as, the cleaning cycles that the meter will
be exposed to. Depending on the application, the flowmeter
could be cleaned as many as six times per day.
Many filling production operations run multiple shifts.Their
production cycle may include filling two to three containers
per minute. This can translate to 2880 “batches”
per day through a single flowmeter! The flowmeter design
must be robust to withstand the service environment.
Additionally, the flowmeter should respond rapidly in
the service environment to assure an accurate batch.
One of our satisfied customers includes a Coca-Cola
bag-in-a-box beverage production facility located in
the Pacific Northwest. They use Hoffer meters for batching
water and various syrup products. This location is one
of five Coca-Cola production plants nationwide. They
produce 10,000-12,000 packages per day or 12.5 million
gallons per year. Their production is distributed to
wholesaler operations and the Coca-Cola fountain sales
group throughout Washington state, Idaho, Montana, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Northern California and
parts of Canada. They have used the Hoffer 3A meters
for several years. The Hoffer meter replaced another
turbine flowmeter that they were experiencing problems
with. The primary issues that drove this location to
select Hoffer include the rapid dynamic response of
the flowmeter and the ability to withstand the CIP cycles.
Previous meters employed were not as responsive and
exhibited pickup coil failures from the thermal cycling
that the meter is exposed to during the CIP cycle.
Hoffer is pleased to provide accurate flow measurement
systems to help meet the criteria of another challenging
application. If your travel plans include a trip to
the Pacific Northwest, you may want to enjoy a beverage
product from Coca-Cola. You can rest assured that the
bottling plant has employed accurate and sanitary flowmeters
to provide you with an outstanding beverage product.
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