The vision of Ole Christian Sandberg and Christopher Harlem was: „We will create the most sought-after mineral water in the world.“ Voss, as the brand name is known, grew up in glass bottles. Now the water is also conquering the markets in PET. The fountain from Vatnestrøm in southern Norway has now commissioned a new, higher-capacity PET line from Krones.
The two Norwegian school friends studied Business Administration together at Berkeley University in California. In 1998, they came up with the idea of offering mineral water from the unspoilt nature of their home country of Norway on the American market - as Premium product in an extravagant bottle.
Only around one per cent of production remains in Norway itself. And that was the plan from the outset. Around 70 per cent of Voss water is sold in the United States. As an American limited company, Voss of Norway ASA also has its headquarters in New York City. The rest goes to 50 other countries, mainly the Middle East, Australia, Germany and Austria.
Extravagant design
For this plan, they enlisted the help of designer Neil Kraft, who gave them the minimalist cylindrical glass bottle which was to become an icon of good taste. They also had a market analysis carried out in advance, which came to a clear conclusion: a water that they would have to ship halfway around the world should only be sold in the highest price segment are offered.
Also elementary for a good Marketing concept was a suitable name. The two friends created it by tracing the map of Norway: Voss, the name of a small town in the centre of Norway, seemed suitable to them because it is short and memorable, but also sounds Norwegian. Then all they needed was the right water.
Particularly pure water
This is what Ole Christian Sandberg and Christopher Harlem found in Vatnestrøm near Iveland. They bought a small bottling plant here in 2000. The water from this spring is characterised by its unusually low content of organic and inorganic components (Total Dissolved Solids/TDS) and is therefore particularly pure.
Roy Kristensen, now responsible for the source and the laboratory, was employee number three and thus the man from the very beginning: „In the first year, we only filled 500,000 glass bottles on a small, 35-year-old line,“ he recalls. „With the right people in sales, things then took off in the USA from 2002.“
At the time, for example, there were claims in the media that the singer Madonna would not check into any hotel that did not also offer Voss. The brand slowly developed into a Cult water.
PET containers for on-the-go markets
At the same time, the company also began PET container in order to fulfil the demand for the On-the-go markets better serve our customers.
„As with the glass bottles, we also printed the PET containers ourselves for three years using a screen printing machine, even though the machine manufacturer didn't actually think this was possible,“ recalls Roy Kristensen.
It was a concept that worked - just three years later, total sales had already reached 25 million PET bottles. Following the global financial crisis, an American investment company joined the company in 2011, and in 2016 the Chinese Reignwood Group acquired a majority stake in Voss. Today the Sales of 77 million PET bottles per year and is growing by around 15 per cent annually.
Print your own glass bottles
Today, Voss fills its water with a total of around in equal parts PET and glass bottles from. The latter are available in two sizes, 375 and 800 millilitres, for still and carbonated water as well as flavoured water. The company uses a line with a capacity of 25,000 bottles per hour, which runs in three shifts. A special feature of the glass bottles is that they are printed using two screen printing machines.
The entire line was originally made up of second-hand machines. In order to gradually modernise it, Voss had Krones install both a Linatronic empty bottle inspection machine and an Autocol self-adhesive labeller to line the flavoured water containers at the beginning of 2018.
„For filling the glass bottles, too, we want to work with high-quality, efficient machines, which is why we opted for Krones here as well,“ says Olaf Grimsmo.
New PET line from Krones
Voss offers water in PET containers in three sizes (330, 500 and 850 millilitres). The most popular container size is the 500 millilitre bottle. However, as the existing PET line with its capacity of just 12,000 containers per hour was no longer able to meet demand, Voss replaced it in 2016 with a New complete line from Krones with a capacity of 40,800 containers per hour.
This line currently only fills still water - with the option of processing carbonated drinks at a later date, which is why a Contiflow mixer has already been installed. However, this would require a Newly designed bottle neck, which is suitable for filling carbonated beverages.
"The major challenge However, when filling, the Closure. From a marketing point of view, of course, it fits the bottle perfectly, but technically it is Difficult to handle, because it is very slippery and slippery,“ says Torfinn Mykjaaland, PET Production Manager. „To be able to grip the cap, we have to generate sufficient pressure - and that's exactly what the capper selected by Krones does.“
Flexible packaging
In order to be as flexible as possible when it comes to packaging and thus fulfil a wide range of market requirements, the Variopac Pro WTS is supplemented by a Multipacker is installed. This produces packs of four or six, which the Variopac Pro WTS then processes into packs of 24 on trays or shrink packs. It also places individual bottles in wrap-around cartons.
„We wanted to First-class technology, and we got that from Krones,“ explains Plant Manager Olaf Grimsmo. „The line operates in two shifts, so we still have capacity for a possible third shift.“
And this option is valuable, because Voss wants to continue to grow strongly in the future.
[infotext icon]Turnkey: Krones supplied the new PET line as a turnkey solution. Among other things, it comprises the Contiflow mixer, the Contiform Bloc with Contiform 3 Pro blow-moulder and Modulfill VFS filler in the cleanroom, the Autocol self-adhesive labeller with two stations, the Variopac Pro WTS packaging machine, the Modulpal Pro 1A palletiser with Robobox pack distributor and the VarioClean CIP system.Krones at the BrauBeviale 2018: Hall 7A, Stand 510
