T. Freemantle’s Automatic Beverage Multipack Machine is said to have played a ‘pivotal’ role in Belvoir Farm’s move into canning, which has seen the soft drinks manufacturer invest £2 million in a new canning line at its Leicestershire on-farm factory.
Thanks to the machine’s ability to carton ‘virtually any can size into any multipack configuration’, the system has enabled Belvoir to embark on an innovation drive that has sent sales of its canned drinks on an upwards trajectory.
The popularity of the canned RTD (Ready To Drink) format has surged in recent years. Whilst the canned RTD market is dominated by alcoholic offerings, there is ‘huge demand’ for more sophisticated soft options, such as mocktails and botanical sodas. Belvoir Farm had been servicing this market with a range of cans produced by a co-packer. However, by 2022, the company recognised it needed to bring can production in-house to fully capitalise on the canned RTD opportunity.
“Our canned portfolio was growing at such a pace that we needed to invest in in-house production. Up until that point, we hadn’t truly committed to the category,” explained Martin Reynolds, head of engineering & project leader at Belvoir.
Belvoir had plans to launch its RTD mocktails in 250ml cans alongside a new range of light soft drinks in 330ml slim cans and botanicals in 150ml cans. It also wanted to move into the multipack space, with fridge-friendly four and six-packs.
“We started looking at equipment for the canning line and when it came to the cartoning machine, the same name kept cropping up in conversation: T. Freemantle,” Martin added.
Belvoir invited T. Freemantle to discuss whether the packaging machinery manufacturer could meet its brief for a format-flexible cartoning machine that could be delivered within a six month timeframe.
“T. Freemantle confirmed everything we were hoping to hear – that their machine could handle all of the can formats we were hoping to run as well as those we might want to introduce in the future, such as 10 or 24 can multipacks for export markets,” Martin said. “We did look at other machinery manufacturers but they couldn’t compete on timeframe, price, format flexibility, fast and simple cleandown or parts/service availability.
“We were quoted lead times of up to 12 months and the quotes were much higher as they said they would need to build bespoke systems to accommodate the different formats we wanted to run. T. Freemantle were very confident that a six month lead time from order to delivery was possible.”
At this stage in the project, Belvoir hadn’t quite finalised what form the multipacks would take. Therefore, it tapped into T. Freemantle’s design studio service to come up with a design that would be ‘line-compatible, practical and aesthetically appealing’.
“Initially we were thinking we wanted an open-sided pack, but T. Freemantle’s advice was that a FEC (Fully Enclosed Carton) would be more viable,” Martin revealed. “They gave us a good steer on what cartonboard would be suitable and pointed us in the direction of Graphic Packaging for designing and printing the cartons. They also recommended a really good glue supplier.”
Belvoir placed its order in January and the Automatic Beverage Multipack Machine was installed six months later.
“Time was of the essence as we had already closed the contract with our co-packer so there was massive pressure on the factory to get can production moving again,” Martin recalled.
To ensure the project was delivered within the timescales, T. Freemantle took the step of carrying out the FAT (Factory Acceptance Testing) as part of the installation.
High speed packing of beverage cans into smaller cartons is described as an application that ‘few engineering firms have mastered’. It is possible to run four-packs on a machine designed for producing 12 or 24 can multipacks from thicker corrugated board, but the line speeds tend to be ‘unfeasibly slow’, which is why many beverage manufacturers resort to hand-packing smaller cartons.
Instead of wrapping a blank around a collation of cans and then gluing it, T. Freemantle’s Automatic Beverage Multipack Machine uses pre-glued cartons, which are picked one at a time from a magazine holder, erected and presented to the can collation. This continuous motion process is said to speed up the cartoning process considerably.
An infeed gate system facilitates the release of cans into the machine, where they are guided into a diamond shape that is maintained along the length of the machine until they have been deposited in the open cartons.
“The diamond formation makes it much easier to insert the cans into the cartons than if they were presented square on. It also reduces the risk of snagging on the edges of the cartons,” said Simon Holt, head of sales (UK & Ireland) at T. Freemantle.
The cans are supported throughout the insertion process to ensure stability is maintained. Can size changeover is described as ‘simple and easy’ to perform with no change parts – format changeovers can be executed in as little as 15 minutes.
Belvoir’s minimum line speed requirement – set by the filler – was 12,500 cans per hour, which equates to 50 cartons per minute. Martin reported that the line ‘easily and consistently’ runs at 55 cartons per minute and could potentially reach 70 cartons per minute. Having this capacity will allow the producer to ramp up output to keep pace with demand.
In the first six months of operation, Belvoir produced 1.5 million cans – more than a year’s worth of production under the co-packer arrangement.
For 2025, Belvoir is targeting between five and ten million cans, produced across several canning campaigns. The company plans to invest £2 million in new pasteurising and palletising equipment to allow the canning line to run independently, thereby further increasing capacity.
Martin added, “It’s early days, but already we have secured new distribution for our RTD canned launches and are seeing growth from export markets, in particular the US, Australia, Canada, Japan and China. The flexibility afforded by the Automatic Beverage Multipack Machine is invaluable in helping us to adapt to market demands, whether that is producing an extra 10,000 cans or a 10-can pack for a US retailer.”
