For 13 years, the Berkeley International Mineral Water Race has become the most famous game in West Virginia. In this competition, the best bottled mineral water in the world was selected through water quality tasting. This year, this honor was awarded to the Mountain Valley Mineral Water Company.

However, the quality of mineral water itself is not the only concern of Mountain Valley. Recently, the company upgraded its labeling and inspection processes and supplied bottled water bottles to other bottled water companies. This improvement in the labeling process left a deep impression on the industry. Only a few years ago, the mineral water company in Hot Springs, Arkansas, could only apply foil stamping to glass or plastic bottles using pressure-sensitive labeling equipment. Now, the company uses rotary adhesive paste labeling equipment, the use of label materials can be provided by multiple suppliers. The label is a biaxially stretched white polypropylene material printed on a six-color flexo plate and covered with a transparent BOPP film with a thickness of 0.75 mils. Without affecting the shelf appeal of the product, the move has enabled Mountain Valley to significantly reduce the cost of the label.

According to Jesse Coffman, a purchasing agent, “This change resulted in a 25% savings in the cost of the label material compared to the original pressure-sensitive label. Our marketing department is very optimistic about this product. This label material not only looks beautiful, but also Its good registration and positioning performance greatly increase the accuracy of labeling."

Four labeling production lines
The Mountain Valley plant has installed four rotary labeling lines, all of which are provided by B&H Labeling Systems. Two of these lines are installed in the blow molding shop, while the other two are installed in the filling shop opposite the molding shop. In the blow molding plant, the labeling speed for the labeling line of the Model 1600 is 100 bottles/minute, while the maximum speed for the other line of the Model 8000S is 460 bottles/minute. The Model 1600 is used for the labeling of PET bottles. It is suitable for SBO-6 Series 1 bottles produced by Sidel. The size of PET bottles can be 1 liter or 1.5 liter. The Model 8000S labeling system is suitable for smaller bottles. The smallest bottle it uses is produced by the Sidel SBO-20 Series 2 bottle making system and has a capacity of only 8 oz.

“We also considered other PET bottle blow molding systems, but there is no doubt that Sidel’s system is the best solution for us,” explains Claude Whitehurst, deputy manager of container production at Mountain Valley, explaining, “We are from Productivity and the quality of the bottle are evaluated on both sides. With the experience of Sidel and our own operators, we can achieve the perfect combination of efficiency and quality at the same time. These blow-molding systems are robust and trustworthy."

Some of the PET bottles produced by Mountain Valley itself were sent directly to the filling plant across the street after they had been labeled and palletized, where they were filled, capped, and packaged. A considerable portion of the PET bottles were supplied to other bottled water producers after they had been labelled and palletized.

The third production situation is that after the PET bottle is blow molded, it is not labeled first, but it is palletized directly onto the pallet, and then sent to the filling workshop opposite the street for filling, and finally labeling. There are two Model 8000S labeling devices produced by B&H in this bottling plant. The filling speed of the filling machine is 850 bottles per minute, and the purpose of using two of the above labeling machines is to keep the labeling speed and the filling speed in synch.

Mountain Valley’s fourth production scenario is related to the 10 oz and 1 liter glass bottles, which are also filled on the filling line before being labeled by two Model 8000S labeling devices.

B&H Model 1600 Rotary Adhesive Labeling System

Computer positioning
All four B&H labeling lines are equipped with a computer positioning system. Chris Ferree, deputy manager of the Filling Department at Mountain Valley, spoke about the computer positioning system. In the labeling process, cutting errors sometimes occur due to inaccurate label positioning. This is a problem often encountered in mechanical systems. The computer positioning system can automatically detect the positioning and correct cutting, almost completely eliminating the above problems.

The positioning system detects the label cut mark and sends a signal to the equipment handling machine. The label is immediately sucked onto a vacuum drum and the vacuum drum is rotated in front of a coating roller. The design of the vacuum drum can lift the ends of the label slightly, and when the vacuum drum rotates past the coater roller, the glued water is applied to the upturned portions at both ends of the label. Immediately afterwards, the glued part of the front end of the label contacts the bottle so that the label leaves the vacuum drum and is attached to the bottle as the bottle rotates.

In order to speed up production conversions due to changes in labeling requirements, the B&H labeling device can quickly change settings without any tools, and it also uses color-coded conversion components. The operator only needs to install the relevant color-coded components in place and select the parameters of the various pre-stored containers on the control panel. With just one button, the operator can automatically set vacuum drums, cutting drums, and sizing systems for the correct label control. This operation enables the device to be pre-programmed by the on-line computer, thereby reducing the technical level requirements for the operator to perform setting conversion work and ensuring the best performance of the labeling device.

Currently, in order to quickly adapt to the needs of different beverage manufacturers, Mountain Valley has stocked 32 different labels from multiple label suppliers. This situation has brought great pressure to its labeling operation process, which requires the labeling equipment to have the greatest production flexibility and short-lived capacity.

Labeling equipment is not the only place in Mountain Valley to improve the production process. Last summer, the company purchased and installed a new filling level detection system, the RayTrak on-line inspection system, from TapTone. The system uses X-ray technology to detect unfilled, cap deformed, uncapped caps and other unqualified products during filling. Prior to this, similar inspections could only be done manually.

"It will not miss any unqualified product. We are very satisfied with it." Mr. Ferree said.