Middle East & North Africa Beverages Manufacturing Company (MenaBev), a franchise bottler of PepsiCo and one of the leading bottling operators in the MENA region, is utilizing Sidel’s extensive expertise to deliver seven new bottle formats across two PET lines.
Sidel, one of the three industry groups of Swiss-domiciled multinational corporation Tetra Laval, worked closely with the Jeddah-based bottler to convert two Combi PET lines in just a week’s time at MenaBev’s huge 300,000 square metre MEGA Plant. The efficient, sustainable, and quick transition resulted in improved line performance, with deliverables, including a lightweight design for the iconic Aquafina brand.
The company’s MEGA Plant, one of the world’s largest PepsiCo bottling units, is supported by a local distribution centre to fulfill production needs to serve millions of consumers in the region. With an experience of over four decades in designing and implementing customized and comprehensive PET line solutions, Sidel has supported MenaBev in efficiently reaching its product release dates in the market. Both projects entailed a wide scope of work to ensure that one of the Combi PET line adaptations catered for three new-look Aquafina formats, while the other could run four new Carolina formats.
Experts from both MenaBev and Sidel have benefitted from a close partnership for over three years, with streamlined project management. MenaBev also called on Sidel’s expertise to deliver new formats of the Carolina bottle in response to increased sugar taxes impacting the Saudi market. Despite being challenged by market-wide component shortages, the two line conversion projects resulted in an optimized workflow and quick delivery of the parts required, with both the Combi PET lines successfully adapted in a week’s time.
With Sidel’s engineers maximizing their production performance, the Aquafina line has a capacity of running up to 60,000 bottles per hour (bph) against 54,000 bph previously, while the Carolina line has maintained its optimized speed of 48,000 bph.
The Swiss-based company also focused on supporting MenaBev’s sustainability goals, including delivering a lightweight, high-performance bottle as part of the design process for the iconic Aquafina brand. The technical development of the new design, including a full feasibility study, laboratory checks, and performance tests on the stretch blow-molding process was applied to Aquafina bottles of various measurements to ensure high performance. The new design producing a lighter-weight 330 ml bottle has benefitted from a 10% reduction in raw materials, with the bottle’s industrial performance optimized with greater consumer satisfaction.
Karim AbdelWahed, Services Manager at Sidel, says, “Our ability to adapt and convert existing Sidel lines enables customers such as MenaBev to rapidly respond to global changes and market needs. The Aquafina bottle has always been iconic in its design and we are proud to utilize its expertise in packaging design to support the technicalities of producing a new bottle for this renowned brand. It has not only maintained high performance, but also provides the same enjoyable experience for consumers and helps MenaBev strengthen its commitment to sustainability.”
