Metal Can Package Fruit Juice/Paste/Sauce Processing Equipment

With the improvement of the economic level, people have stricter requirements on the quality and packaging of food and beverages. Using metal cans to package is more and more popular in food and beverage packaging field. Compared with the bottle, pouch and cartons, metal cans have the advantages of high strength, good rigidity and not easy to break. Metal cans package also have the character to prevent moisture, high temperature, sunlight, bacteria, pressure, and other natural changes.

The material of Metal can is environmentally friendly. It combines the strength and formability of steel with the corrosion resistance, solderability and beautiful appearance of tin in a single material. It has the characteristics of corrosion resistance, non-toxicity, high strength and good ductility.

The closed system of metal cans is completely isolated from environmental factors. It can prevent food from deteriorated by light, oxygen, and moisture, and will not be weakened by aroma or polluted by environmental odors. The stability of food storage is better than other packaging materials have the highest preservation rate of vitamin C and the best preservation of nutrients.

The metal can juice packing equipment are all made of SUS304/SUS316L, which can prevent the material from corroding equipment and keeping in accordance with food hygiene requirements.

The whole metal can juice processing line includes fruit pretreatment system, fruit juice blending and formulation system, fruit juice sterilizing, homogenizing, degassing system, fruit juice canning and sealing system, canned fruit juice sterilizing/pasteurizing system, and canned juice packing system.

With the configuration of the equipment adjustment, the metal can juice line can also be used for producing canned carbonated juice, plant-based milk, fruit sauce or jam products, so it is flexible and can be customized according to clients’ requirements.

The capacity of the metal can juice processing is from 500 cans per hour to 45000 cans per hour, and the can volume can also be customized from 70gsmall cans to 5kg big cans.

There are two main styles with metal can package:

—Tinplate can, which is consists of can body, can lid and can bottom, so it also called three-piece cans. This can is suitable for packing non-contain gas drinks or food, such as coconut milk, tomato sauce, fruit cans.

—Aluminum can, which is consists of can body and can lid, so it is also called two-piece cans. It is suitable for filling carbonated drinks like coke or beer.

Metal can packaging is mainly used for packing fruit and vegetable juice, tea drinks, coffee drinks, milk drinks, food paste or sauce, vegetable protein drinks, gas contain drinks, condensed milk, milk powder and other liquid or solid food drinks.

Metal can package for food and beverage usually use fresh fruit/milk or concentrated juice as raw material, then blend with other ingredients like water, sugar, acidic oxidant, after homogenizing pasteurizing, then filling into small metal cans. As the production line adopts to pasteurization and hot filling method, so after filling, the material needs to do the secondary sterilizing. We usually use retort sterilizer or spray type pasteurizing tunnel to do the treatment of the drinks. After secondary pasteurizing, then date coding and packing into shrinkage package or carton box.

The juice blending and formulation system is composed of four parts:

1. Hot water generating system, which is supplying hot water to blending tanks and sugar/powder dissolving tanks by plate heat exchanger.
2. Sugar dissolving system/water powder mixing system, which is used for dissolving ingredients such as sugar, acid agents, gums, etc. by high shear mixing tank or water powder mixer.
3. Concentrating juice transferring system, which is transferring concentrated juice/puree from drum containers to blending tanks by a diaphragm pump.
4. Blending tanks, usually equip 2-3 sets for continuous production, the concentrated juice/puree, dissolved ingredients and RO pure water will all be pumped into the blending tanks for the juice formulation and mixing.

In the juice blending system, ingredient dosing precision is the key factor of the quality for the end products, the Mettler Toledo loading cells can solve the problems well. And to reduce the risk of pollution and material leakage, the mixproof valve cluster can be adopted.

The blending system not only can formulate juice, but also can be used for producing carbonated drinks, plant-based beverages, fruit paste, sauce and jam with the bleeding tank stir adjustment.

In the metal can juice packing line, we use plate pasteurizers or tubular sterilizers to do the heat treatment. The pasteurizing process varies according to juice pH value, whether there is an anti-oxidant agent in the juice and filling temperature. But for most of the metal can juice packing line, it is hot filling, so before filling, the pasteurization temperature does not exceed 100℃.

For canned fruit or vegetable sauce, as it is a high viscosity, we will adopt to tube-in tube pasteurizer. The technological sterilizing process is 55℃ homogenizing and material inlet—75-95℃holding for 5-30S—88℃material outlet for hot filling.

For canned plant-based beverage(coconut milk, oat milk, almond milk), as it is neutral drinks and high in nutrient, we usually use tubular-type UHT sterilizer to treat the drinks. The sterilizing process is 135-137℃ for 3-5S, so that the original flavor and nutrient can be kept at maximumly.

The empty cans are stored in pallets when buying from can suppliers, so we need to equip the metal can depalletizer to convey the cans from pallets to filling machines.

The depalletizer is mainly suitable for automatic depalletizing of three-piece cans, two-piece aluminum cans. The empty cans (bottles) stacked on the pallet are pushed to the conveyor layer by layer after rising, and then transferred to the slide-type can washer or automatic bottle washer by a multi-column conveyor or a turntable to replace manual cans (bottles). ), Increase productivity. PLC programmable computer automatic controllers, photoelectric switches, travel switches, pneumatic control, etc. all adopt well-known brand products from Germany, Japan, Taiwan and so on. The capacity is 0-500 cans per minute available.

Empty can inspection systems usually use machine vision technology, combined with high-speed cameras and image processing algorithms, to conduct comprehensive quality inspection of empty cans, including appearance defects, dents, scratches, deformation and other issues. At the same time, it can also ensure the sealing performance of the can mouth by detecting whether it is damaged or deformed to avoid leakage during the filling process.

The full can detection equipment can be installed after the filling machine or after the sterilizer, it uses X-ray technology to detect liquid level and uses sensors to detect products without sealing, and use the built-in pneumatic rejector to remove unqualified cans.

The metal can filling machine is composed of washing, filling and sealing parts, different products also need different canning machines.

For canned juice or canned plant-based drinks,  the filling temperature will be 85-89℃ hot filling, and as the material is low in viscosity, so the gravity-type canning machine is the most suitable machine for filling. To extend the shelf life of the canned juice drinks, after filling, the liquid nitrogen can be dosed into the cans to displace the air in the cans.

For canned fruit jam, fruit paste and sauce, according to the high viscosity character, the piston-type canning machine is used, and the filling temperature can be hot filling or room temperature filling according to the processing flowchart.

For canned beer or carbonated drinks, as there are CO2 in drinks, the canning machine liquid distribution tank is much thicker than normal canning machine, and when filling, the liquid distribution tank pressure needs to be equal to the can’s pressure, so it will need isboar filling machine. And the filling temperature will be also low-temperature filling(3-5℃ filling).

After the material is pasteurized and hot-filled, only part of the pathogenic bacteria is killed. In order to extend the shelf life of the product, the packaged finished product must be sterilized again. For high-protein beverages, we usually use sterilization kettles(above 121℃sterilizing holding for 10-30min). For acid juice, we use retort sterilizer or spray pasteurizing tunnel(95℃sterilizing holding for 10-30min); For fruit and vegetable sauce, the sterilizing process is 95-115℃holding for 20-60mins.