Brewing company Simonds Farsons Cisk, which serves the island of Malta, has commissioned two beer and soft drinks keg plants, as well as an 18.9l water filling line.

The two plants use robot handling technology to replace the company’s current machinery, which is more than 20-years old.

Farsons’ new plant can handle 30l kegs and process 85 containers an hour.

It also includes a depalletiser, an internal and external washer, a beer pasteuriser with the latest control and data recording technology, a neck sterilising station, cap picking and placing positions, ink-jet printing of batch code.

With an hourly filling capacity of 300 18.9l containers or smaller, the water filling line can depalletise or palletise three bottles at a time.

A decapping machine, two pressure testers for any defective containers, an internal and external washer and sterilised capper are also included in the filling line.

“We are confident that this latest investment in our operations plant will result in reduced operating costs, a reduction in energy and water consumption, as well as improved quality of product.”

As part of the development, a new water sterilising plant has also been installed and equipped with the latest control technology.

Farsons Group chairman Louis Farrugia said: “We are confident that this latest investment in our operations plant will result in reduced operating costs, a reduction in energy and water consumption, as well as improved quality of product. Concurrently the investment in robot handling of heavy containers will drastically reduce operator fatigue and risk of injuries.

“Both plants have been installed in a new building that was purposely built for them and conforms to the highest hygiene standards. Furthermore, technical staff have undergone extensive training at both at the suppliers’ premises, as well as on-site.”

Through the use of this new robot handling technology, Farsons has eliminated the manual handling of kegs weighing 42kg and water containers weighing 20kg, as well as automating pallet handling, at the two plants.