One of the world’s largest bottling companies for PepsiCo outside of the USA has once again chosen SIPA to help it expand its operations. Varun Beverages India Pvt Ltd is an official bottler for Pepsi in India, where it has operations all over the country.
Over the last few months, the company, which generally goes by the name of VBL, has been investing in XFORM preform injection molding systems, in XTRA rotary stretch-blow molding, and in Sincro Bloc, the integration of bottle blowing, filling and capping equipment in a single system.
This February, three XFORM 500 GEN4 XP systems, equipped with 180- and 144-cavity SIPA molds, were installed at different locations in India. All the machines are dedicated to production of preforms for PepsiCo carbonated soft drinks, for bottles ranging in size from 250 up to 2250mL. A Sincro Bloc 16-100-15 will be installed in December.
VBL also works for Pepsi in other countries, including Zimbabwe, where it plans to grow its presence. It established a green field production facility in Zimbabwe four years ago, aiming to cater for what it said was “an untapped market with huge potential.” With a new XTRA 16, which went into operation in May, it clearly is on the way to realizing that potential.
Two of the key reasons why VBL chose XTRA is its high productivity coupled with low energy consumption. XTRA can produce more bottles per cavity than any other stretch-blow molding machine in its category, thanks in large part to its very wide process angle (200 degrees), leading to a top-of-the-class TCO.
VBL produces and distributes a wide range of carbonated soft drinks (CSDs), as well as a large selection of non-carbonated beverages (NCBs), including packaged drinking water sold under various PepsiCo trademarks. It has been associated with PepsiCo since the 1990s, and now has franchises for various PepsiCo products across 27 States and 7 Union Territories in India. VBL has 31 manufacturing plants in India and six more in other countries.