Arizona Co-Packer Quenches Thirst For Beverage Packaging

By John Kalkowski, editor in chief, Food Online

Riding a wave of growing popularity for nutritional and energy beverages, Arizona Production & Packaging, a contract beverage manufacturer based in Tempe, AZ, is growing quickly. When it opened in 2000, the company — also known as AZPack — had a single packaging line in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse. Now, AZPack is bottling and canning more than one million containers of beverages each day at its 240,000-square-foot facility, making it one of the largest beverage operations in the Southwest U.S.

The company found its niche bottling 2-oz to 3-oz energy drinks and vitamin supplement shots, according to Aaron Harris, VP of operations. As a contract manufacturer, much of AZPack’s early business was concentrated on direct-selling customers whose products are not available in retail stores.

Consumers are always looking for the next new product, he says, citing many new beverages that are developed first in the direct-selling market. Once these products catch on and people know about them, the products go more mainstream. As the company has grown, though, AZPack has added larger CPGs as customers. Still, AZPack consider entrepreneurial start-ups an important part of its business, Harris says.

Playing A Role In Product Development

Harris says co-manufacturers play a special role in the development of new products. AZPack allows small beverage companies to scale up their production as their primary manufacturer. For the larger customers, the co-manufacturer offers a facility where they can run unique packages they wouldn’t normally run in their own plant. Sometimes, AZPack also can offer process capabilities that the large, dedicated brands do. Consequently, those brands don’t need to disrupt one of their working plants. As an example, he says, a brand owner can rent an entire line for a shift to test new formulations and packaging.

With its rapid expansion, AZPack moved into to the first building at its current site in 2009 and began adding production lines. Products include teas, infused waters, energy drinks, and non-carbonated, bottled dietary and nutrient supplements based on super fruits, such as mangosteen.

While sales of sodas may be slipping nationally, Harris says AZPack is seeing companies — even the well-known  brands — coming out with carbonated drinks that are oriented toward the health market.

The facility boasts two canning lines capable of producing up to 1.8 million cans per day, as well as two bottling lines capable of producing 300,000 to 400,000 bottles each day depending on the container sizes. More recently, AZPack has added a powder filling line that loads flexible pouches with products, such as protein powders, and a cap-filling line that fills flavors and nutritionals into a pressurized cap.

Co-Manufacturer Meets Customer Demands

Harris says some customers involve AZPack very early on in the product development process. “Some come with an idea and want to know how they can get it done. Others come with everything figured out,” he says, adding that they’ve already decided on their final product and packaging. “They’re just looking for a company that can take what they want and deliver it to them. Our job is to follow the formula and make we sure deliver a quality product.”

AZPack does not have a direct sales team. Harris says most new customers come through word-of-mouth recommendations from customer, vendors, and flavor houses.

“You never know which product is going to be the next big thing,” he says. “Products can come and go. However, you have to put the same effort into every single one of them. Take care of the new startup, keep them happy, give them a good product, and they will be a customer for life. The guy whose product didn’t make it this time around, may come back again for his next new product.”

Process Starts With Ingredient Mixing

Beverages are mixed in batch tanks. The AZPack facility has four product storage tanks with vertical agitation, low-foam inlets, and level sensing; two tanks also have cooling jackets. When required, beverages are sent through High Temperature/Short Time (HTST) pasteurization. The HTST process heat the fluid to up to 235 degrees for 20 seconds, and then it is chilled before filling. Some products don’t require thermal processing because the nature of the product doesn’t require it or the co-packer uses preservatives. Prior to filling, all containers are sent through rinsers with a leave-on sanitizer.

The company utilizes two bottling lines. One line uses a 16-head filler with precision metering to handle small, highly-concentrated containers used in the emerging enhanced water market. Dealing with very small containers requires precise filling, and this filler is accurate to +/- 1 mL. The line unit also allows application of both screw caps and snap caps. The second line employs an 18-head rotary filler that can handle both hot-fill and cold-fill products.

Once filled, bottles can receive a dose of liquid nitrogen before they are sealed and conveyed out of a clean room to a labeler. All bottle labeling is done with full-body shrink sleeves. Oval shaped containers preferred for many of the high-value products packaged at AZPack need precise placement of labels to line up for proper display.

AZPack fills a wide variety of shapes and sizes of bottles, so these products are hand-packed. Because of that, Harris says, automating the secondary packaging is not necessarily cost-effective. “Customers always change their mind on packaging. If you put in a ton of capital automating the process, you might not make your money back in our world,” he says.

Canning Lines Offer High-Speed Filling

With its two canning lines, AZPack can handle up to 1,200 two-piece cans per minute in sizes ranging from 5.5-oz to 24-oz. AZPack also offers multiple process types, including tunnel pasteurization, hot fill, and cold fill.

One line employs a CFT filler with 84 valves and a 12-station seamer. Harris says this filler is used in many smaller facilities and is popular with craft brewers. The larger line uses a Krones 100-valve, high-speed volumetric filler with a 12-station seamer. This machine was the first of its type installed in the U.S. It allows operators to dial in the precise volume needed, including head space during hot fills.

All canned products are packaged into trays with film overwrap. The company also recently installed a multipack cartoner that can load four-pack to 24-pack cartons.

Fast Changeovers Drive Efficiency

Depending on customer demands, a packaging line at AZPack may run a single product for a week or may change as many as five times in a single day. “In our business, one of the biggest, and most important, things to work on is the changeover process,” Harris says. They try to shorten turnaround times so the company can profitably take on small runs. “If you focus on changeovers being correct, you will get line efficiency, and it will deliver quality as well.”

Grouping cap and lid sizes is important in determining run schedules because that is the biggest factor in changeover time, he explains. Consequently, the staff focuses on organization and prestaging of parts and tools. “Before the filler ever stops, the next set of parts is sitting right outside the room ready to go in. We’re like a race car pit crew where each member has assigned responsibilities.”

Pouch Filling Expands Capabilities

In 2014, AZPack stepped out of its beverage business to meet the needs of some of its health food customers. It added a line to bag powdered foods, such as protein powders in 1-lb to 3-lb gusseted, premade pouches. Harris says they were receiving requests from companies using rigid containers that   want to begin using flexible pouches to gain material and transportation savings while improving the sustainability of the packaging.

He says AZPack is always willing to change and adapt to market requirements. “The company started in bottling, went to canning, and then to powders. Next, we are looking at looking at moving into canned alcohol products, such as malt beverages.”

Producing a wide variety of products requires special attention to food safety in the bustling plant. AZPack has a microbiologic lab, as well as multiple quality labs. It has developed systems to monitor and segregate raw materials. At the time of this interview, AZPack had just completed an SQF food safety audit, checking on the company’s critical control points, and process documentation. The company provides training to its more than 120 employees, who generally are dedicated to a single process within the plant.

“The biggest thing is the mindset of the folks who work on the line,” Harris says. “The people who are touching your product every day are the ones you want to be involved in food safety. It’s one thing to have the owner or the quality manager understand the importance of food safety. It’s another thing to have the operator on the line understand food safety. It really starts with them.”

For more information, visit www.azpack.com