As a rule, the production of carbonated beverages and fruit juices follows different principles: Soft drinks are to a large extent produced from standardized ingredients with unvarying product properties, whereas most fruit juices, fruit nectars and fruit drinks are mixed from non-standardized fruit juice concentrates subjected to natural variations. This means that a standardized mixing process is sufficient for the production of most carbonated or soft drinks. The properties of natural raw materials for juice production, however, can vary depending on the batch and origin. Varying acid and sugar contents require intelligent and flexible process control in order to ensure consistently high product quality of instant drinks. IBBL, one of the producers of Prigat, Israel‘s leading beverage brand, has modernized its juice production. With the Plant iT process control system designed by ProLeiT, IBBL has successfully combined high flexibility in production and comprehensive traceability.

The Central Bottling Company (CBC Group) is the number one beverage producer in the dynamically growing Israeli beverage market. Among the affiliates of the CBC group is Israel Beer Breweries Ltd. (IBBL) which produces beer brands such as Carlsberg or Tuborg under license. The company not only produces Nestea under license, but also Prigat fruit juices. Prigat offers a large range of direct fruit juices, mixed juices and fruit nectars, deep-frozen concentrates, soft drinks and syrups.

To cope with the strongly growing demand, the company decided in favor of an extensive modernization of its plant in the Israeli town of Ashkelon. An entirely new syrup room is at the core of this special plant. As a logical consequence, IBBL has also replaced its existing, isolated automation solutions with the open Plant iT process control system. Plant iT has provided the basis for the consistent automation of the entire production system - including the receipt of raw material, the mixing tanks and even the buffer tanks at the bottling plant. With this extensive modernization, IBBL has not only increased its production capacity, but ensures safe production based on strict hygienic standards and consistent traceability. One major factor in the company‘s decision in favor of the ProLeiT Plant iT process control system was the fact that an IBBL brewery at the same location was automated with Plant iT two years ago. Therefore, IBBL wanted to benefit from the outstanding advantages of this process control system also for its fruit juice production. In addition, the two IBBL plants will be able to jointly utilize numerous components of the hardware equipment, and especially the video server for the recording of all plant states.