Automated Soft-drink Factory

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 24

Automated Soft-drink Factory

A new £48,000 soft-drink cordial factory for Ballins Industries, Ltd., now under construction in Byron street, will begin production in April. It will be the largest and most modern in the South Island. The sales manager of the aerated water division of Ballins (Mr R. D. Atherton) said that special features of the new factory would be the large amount of automated plant, and an elevated observation platform for visitors. About 70,000 bottles of softdrink would be produced in the plant daily without the touch of human hand from the time the bottles were washed till the time they were packed. The new factory would be of concrete block construction. Most of it would be a single storey, but with a mez-

zanine floor to incorporate a gravity feed system for piping flavours from syrup rooms. The factory floor area would be about 25,000 square feet. Pipe-lines for the syrup would

1 be stainless steel and glass. The factory would amalga- > mate the present factories in Edgeware road and Byron I street. It would incorporate the I biggest continuous water-

treatment plant in the softdrink industry in New Zealand. All the water housed after treatment would go through the latest type of chilling equipment before bottling.