PACKAGING & LABELLING
Bottling UHT milk in PET in Russia In 2007, Vladimir Kayshev took over Pyatigorskiy Dairy, formerly a state-run operation dating back to the 1980s. The equipment was in dire need of upgrading and was capable of processing only 20 metric tons of raw milk per day. Four years later, Kayshev decided to invest heavily in the plant and gradually transform it into a state-of-the-art dairy.
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he city of Pyatigorsk is in the far south of Russia, in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. The region is famous for its hot springs and many mineral springs. That is one reason why the area within a 120 km radius around Pyatigorsk is a protected natural area. Heavy industry is not permitted. “That ensures that the feed our cows get from our 10,000 or so hectares of meadows and fields is especially pure. And that, in turn, has a positive impact on the quality of our milk,” said the dairy’s president Konstantin Sukharev. The water the cows are given to drink is also anything but ordinary. The herd drinks lukewarm mineral water that is pumped up from 1600 m underground. “It’s high in calcium and magnesium, which promotes healthy bone growth,” Sukharev explained. With 2500 cows, the dairy’s own farm produces around onetenth of the raw milk Pyatigorskiy processes. A second farm is currently being established for another 6000 dairy cows. Once that is complete, the dairy hopes to supply around one-third of the milk it processes. The remaining milk will continue to come from small local farms. 32
November/December 2019
UHT and PET make a good team UHT milk remains Pyatigorskiy Dairy’s main product. “Demand on the Russian market is growing year by year,” Sukharev said. Retailers prefer UHT milk because of its longer shelf life. Besides that, consumers prefer it because their buying habits have changed: they want to spend less time on shopping, so they buy larger quantities to have on hand — which means the products have to keep longer. In southern Russia, summertime temperatures can rise above 40°C. It would be complicated to keep larger quantities of fresh milk in the cold chain. And then there’s the fact that UHT is the only way to go for transporting milk to other parts of the vast country. “At the same time, PET bottles are becoming increasingly popular as a packaging material for milk,” Sukharev explained. “So far, though, they have only been used for fresh milk. Now we have combined PET packaging and UHT milk — and for that we chose a Krones aseptic line.” PET has several things going for it as a packaging material:
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