Australia’s Grove Fruit Juice is one of the country’s leading citrus juice producers and manufacturers, with a range of juices sold in grocery retail outlets and food services businesses nationwide and overseas. But when the company was looking for a new, higher-capacity filling and storage solution it turned to JBT ally TORR Industries for assistance.
Already one of the world’s leading suppliers for squeezing and processing equipment for citrus juice producers, not least in the important Australian market, JBT’s operations are now complemented by TORR and its Australia-based partner Engi-O, who worked together to develop a multi-faceted system to meet Grove’s requirements.
One of the largest Australian family-owned fresh fruit processors in the juice category today, Grove Fruit Juice has been producing fresh juices for over 50 years, and currently squeezes some 833,000 oranges every day, as well as pressing over 160,000 fresh apples and 87,000 fresh pears.
The solution TORR developed brought together an A5 Aseptic Filler from partner Engi-O, combined with 1,500 liter Goodpack Storage Containers and 1,500 liter Aseptic Hi Barrier liner bags from Entapack, explains TORR’s Chris Rutter.
Gold Standard
The Engi-O double-membrane closed aseptic filling system, which is validated by the FDA, is capable of filling 2-1500 liter containers for shipping and guarantees sterile products like fruit juices are not exposed to the outside atmosphere at any stage. This, says Rutter, means the juice can be stored and transported without refrigeration whilst maintaining its shelf-life and complying with food safety requirements.
“It’s a very simple system and less complicated from a machinery point of view,” he continues. “So while JBT does the processing, we do the aseptic bag filling in the 1500 liter storage containers.”
According to former Entapack general manager Trevor Stevens, the high temperature sterilization process that was put in place as part of the installation – together with the bolt-on Engi-O Aseptic Filler – was critical to the project’s success. “TORR and Engi-O has gotten the Gold Standard of processing and packaging for this application,” says Stevens. “Grove has had exceptional success with the process from what I have been told by them. It really is a great story of cooperation between a number of suppliers and a very thoughtful company management.”