Celli Group is a global leader in the design and manufacturing of beverage dispensing equipment and accessories. The company is recognised as a leader in the industry for innovation, digitalisation, design and the quality of solutions with a strong emphasis on sustainability. Recently, Celli has launched a product set to revolutionise the sanitisation of beer lines. Hannah Barnett spoke to Cesare Schiatti, Head of Digital Solutions, to learn more.
INan industry where sanitisation activities are exclusively handled by technicians due to the operation's complexity, Celli’s pioneering Hi-ClO product ensures operational effectiveness and optimal sanitisation outcomes, offering an effective remedy to the challenges faced by traditional methods.
“This is a pretty unique product,” said Head of Digital Solutions Cesare Schiatti. “Yes, there are already some portable sanitiser machines that use automation, but they are not as safe by design, or constantly monitorable, as ours are. This is the first solution that offers the full package to launch into the market and become as
standard in the operations of a pub as a smoke detector.”
Celli was founded in 1974 and celebrates its 50th birthday this year. Following a decade of acquisitions, it is now made up of 11 production sites with almost 700 employees mostly based in Italy, the UK, France and Spain, though there are commercial entities all over the world.
Dispensing the future
Celli’s groundbreaking Hi-ClO product optimises resource allocation and improves overall efficiency in the sanitisation process. By streamlining the entire procedure, Hi-ClO provides an innovative digital system
designed to revolutionise the way machines are maintained.
In the UK, beer lines are sanitised every two weeks on average, according to Mr Schiatti. Yet, there are some potential pitfalls in the current system: the sanitiser is harmful if accidentally consumed and it is a somewhat complex operation to perform without training.
Hi-ClO exists to overcome these challenges. It generates hypochlorous acid, with a bactericidal efficacy 80 times higher than the hypochlorite acid commonly used
in standard chlorine-based cleaners. The hypochlorous molecule is very effective against microorganisms but harmless for human beings or large animals.
“The molecule is very interesting, but it’s not widely adopted, because it’s very unstable,” Mr Schiatti explained. “If these molecules are put in a bottle of water, it will quickly return to normal water salts. So, it’s useless after a few minutes. But since we are generating and using it immediately, it is very efficient.”
As an almost entirely automated service, t he Hi-ClO app reminds a point-of-salesmanager when sanitisation day arrives.
It also guides them through the first steps, such as opening the taps and connecting the lines to the rinsing head.
“And from there, the procedure is fully automatic,” said Mr Schiatti. “So, the system washes the lines, generates the sanitiser and leaves it in the line, before eventually rinsing with new fresh water. The app then notifies the user that the process is complete.”
As a natively connected product, Hi-ClO offers full monitoring of the procedure to
ensure it is carried our properly, providing the possibility to have a safe and automatic sanitisation process for beer lines.
Highs of Hi-ClO
The sustainable advantages of the product are clear. If Hi-ClO can enable an increase in the percentage consumption of draft beverages, as opposed to bottled, then this is a progressive step. “One litre of draft is about 10 times more sustainable than a bottle, generally,” Mr Schiatti said.
Additionally, as the sanitiser solution dissolves so quickly, it removes the need to dispose of a toxic substance. The eventual goal of Hi-ClO is to move ownership of the process universally from technicians to point-of-sales managers.
“Probably the most important thing,” Mr Schiatti added, “is that we do not have technicians moving from one point of sale to another, just to run sanitisation. It depends on the country, but 60 to 80 per cent of a technician’s activities are related to such operations, so it removes a lot of carbon emissions.”
In the UK, the point-of-sales managers generally already do the operation, but the workload is still eased. A manager can launch the process late at night before they close a pub and find the system cleaned and ready to use the following morning.
Celli presented the solution as a prototype at the prestigious Drinktec exhibition in Munich back in September 2022, and has piloted the product with several breweries around the Europe in the last year. The industrial version is now ready to launch.
Like any innovative product, many months of development have gone into creating a state-of-the-art piece of kit. However, the biggest challenge when launching Hi-ClO has not been technological, but psychological, according to Mr Schiatti: “The industry is pretty traditional, so pushing adoption is always the toughest part.”
Transforming the industry
For Celli to remain so innovative, a close relationship with suppliers and partners is vital. As a result, Hi-ClO was developed alongside technology engineers Gate Srl and the University of Ferrara.
In order to enhance Celli’s digital design capabilities, in 2022 the company also acquired Padua-based Uqido, which specialises in IoT, Augmented and Virtual Reality, AI solutions and computer vision.
“Uqido is a pure software house, and we are leveraging its capabilities in order to make better native digital products like
Hi-ClO,” said Mr Schiatti. “So, as this technology becomes ever more adopted, we decided to internalise such skills in order to have them easily available.”
Working in the dispensing equipment business, Celli proudly brands itself a ‘Beyond the Bottle’ company, and therefore sustainable by design. “We fight the waste of single-use packaging in favour of beverages supplied in reusable containers,” said Mr Schiatti. “There are several projects ongoing to help build more sustainable beverage dispensing systems and we have recently been granted silver EcoVadis certification.”
Mr Schiatti remained confident, and inspired, by the power of data and technology to transform a traditional industry into a digital one.
“We are moving decision-making from something based off gut-feeling, to datadriven analysis,” he concluded. “That, for me,
is super cool. Yes, it’s tough because this is an industry where people are accustomed to managing their issues with traditional tools and we are telling them to use their thumb on a screen. But it is also very exciting because we are ahead of the curve and there is a huge opportunity to transform the standard.”
