Why Choose the Hot-fill Method?

The current food and beverage industry make heavy use of the hot filling technique. In it, the beverage or food is heated, bottled, and then quickly cooled down.

The hot-fill technique is carried out by a sophisticated filling machine, and it is widespread due to its many advantages:

• It increases the food or beverage’s shelf life.
• It reduces the need to add preservatives to the product, making it as natural as possible.
• It improves sanitation and results in safer, healthier products.
• It uses PET bottles, which are more cost-effective and easier to transport compared to other types of bottles.

Check Out SMF’s Filling Machine and PET Bottles

These advantages and many more are why you should consider the hot-fill technique for your business, and with SMF, you can get a specialised filling machine and high-quality PET bottles to get the job done.

How Does the Hot-fill PET Filling Process Work?

A special process of blowing Hot-Fill bottles allows for the conversion of the resin structure from an amorphous to a semi-crystalline one, which makes the bottle stronger. After that, the hot-filling bottle PET should be immediately cooled down, and this is to protect the integrity of the bottles and ensure the safety of the food/beverage.

After cooling down from a filling temperature of 85°C, the volume of the liquid will shrink by ca.31ml for each 1000ml. This is a very important consideration to get the final volume and labelling correct.

Use of Nitrogen in the Filling Process

Nitrogen dosing systems are used in hot-fill technology to balance the interior pressure inside the bottle. A dose of nitrogen is delivered to the bottle immediately after filling – just before capping.

Using liquid nitrogen which expands up to 700 times its volume allows for counteracting the vacuum created when the hot-filled products cool down and help to regulate the form and the shrinking of PET bottles. Nitrogen pushed also oxygen out of the container which has benefits for the durability of the product inside the bottle.