Company type | Aktiengesellschaft |
---|---|
FWB: KRN | |
Industry | Manufacturing, systems engineering |
Founded | 1951 |
Founder | Herman Kronseder |
Headquarters | Neutraubling, Germany |
Key people | Christoph Klenk (CEO and chairman of the executive board), Volker Kronseder (Chairman of the supervisory board) |
Products | Machinery and production lines for bottling, canning and other packaging |
Revenue | € 3.95 billion (2019) [1] |
Number of employees | 17,353 (2019) |
Website | www.krones.com |
Krones AG is a German packaging and bottling machine manufacturer. It produces lines for filling beverages in plastic and glass bottles or beverage cans. [2] The company manufactures stretch blow-moulding machines for producing polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, plus fillers, labellers, bottle washers, pasteurisers, inspectors, packers and palletisers. This product portfolio is complemented by material flow systems and process technology for producing beverages for breweries, dairies and soft-drink companies.
Krones' corporate evolution is closely connected to the socioeconomic conditions prevalent in Germany following World War II. [3] Hermann Kronseder, the father of the present-day chairman of the supervisory board, used his own designs to manufacture semi-automatic labellers starting with 1951. In the further development as from the 1960s, the firm's range of machinery was extended to include packers and filling systems. In 1980, the company was converted into a stock corporation as Krones AG. With acquisitions of other companies the present-day range of machines for the beverage industry was reached:
The headquarters of the group is situated in Neutraubling near Regensburg, Germany. In Germany in total 10,733 people are employed. [1] Machines and systems are manufactured at the German production facilities (Neutraubling, Nittenau, Flensburg, Freising and Rosenheim). From 2019 on a fabrication site in Debrecen, Hungary, completes production facilities. [5] The internationally focused company achieves more than 90% of its total turnover abroad and is represented worldwide through around 90 subsidiaries and shareholdings. The intralogistics business of Krones is handled by Syskron Holding GmbH since 2014.
Subsidiaries
Cover additional market segments in beverage filling.
In the year 2019 the enterprise held 5,877 patents and utility models. [6]
Plastics engineering
Stretch blow-moulding machines for the production of PET bottles of up to a volume of 3 liters, with an output of 12,800 to 90,000 bottles/hour. The PET recycling system is based on a PET Flakes cleaning process equipped with progressive temperature controls and decontamination.
Filling and packing technology
Rinse, filling and capping lines with a rotary concept. With rotary lines, high-speed tasks of up to 72,000 bottles/hour or approximately 120,000 cans/hour are possible, including aseptic filling systems for beverages with a high pH value (> 4,5). For the disinfection of containers and closures, PES or H2O2 is used. Further steps in beverage production as bottle-washing machines, inspection and control systems for bottles and bundles, as well as labelling machines for cold and hot glue or self-adhesive labelling complete the product range. Packaging machines for bundles either one-way or returnable, sorting and grouping stations, as well as palletisation systems supplement the spectrum.
Process engineering
Breweries can be completely equipped with brewhouses, including fermenting and storage cellar equipment, along with assigned supply installations. For manufacturing plants of non-alcoholic beverages' syrup areas, mixing and carbonising equipment are supplied. Heating systems as UHT- and flash heating systems or pasteurizing systems are available for beverage preservation.
IT solutions and material handling systems
The control of production process and the integration of production data into an ERP system. Logistics systems provide production and distribution with raw, operating and auxiliary materials, as well as finished products, with either block storage or automatic warehouse systems, including commissioning equipment, forklift guidance and yard management systems for logistics process in beverage and food plants. Activities for logistics have been pooled in System Logistics, a legally independent unit. [7]
Consolidated sales: [12]
|
|
Executive board
Chairman of the supervisory board: Volker Kronseder
A reusable bottle is a bottle that can be reused, as in the case as by the original bottler or by end-use consumers. Reusable bottles have grown in popularity by consumers for both environmental and health safety reasons. Reusable bottles are one example of reusable packaging.
Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a coordinated system of preparing goods for transport, warehousing, logistics, sale, and end use. Packaging contains, protects, preserves, transports, informs, and sells. In many countries it is fully integrated into government, business, institutional, industrial, and for personal use.
Although PET is used in several applications, as of 2022 only bottles are collected at a substantial scale. The main motivations have been either cost reduction or recycle content of retail goods. An increasing amount is recycled back into bottles, the rest goes into fibres, film, thermoformed packaging and strapping. After sorting, cleaning and grinding, 'bottle flake' is obtained, which is then processed by either:
A bag-in-box or BiB is a container for the storage and transportation of liquids. It consists of a strong bladder, usually made of several layers of metallised film or other plastics, seated inside a corrugated fiberboard box.
SIG Group AG is a Swiss multinational corporation and one of the biggest manufacturers in the packaging industry.
Blow molding is a manufacturing process for forming hollow plastic parts. It is also used for forming glass bottles or other hollow shapes.
Blow-Fill-Seal, also spelled as Blow/Fill/Seal, in this article abbreviated as BFS, is an automated manufacturing process by which plastic containers, such as bottles or ampoules are, in a continuous operation, blow-formed, filled, and sealed. It takes place in a sterile, enclosed area inside a machine, without human intervention, and thus can be used to aseptically manufacture sterile pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical liquid/semiliquid unit-dosage forms. BFS is an advanced aseptic processing technology that is typically used for filling and packaging of certain sterile liquid formulations like liquid ophthalmics, inhalational anesthetics, or lavaging agents, but can also be used for injectables, parenteral medicines, and several other liquid or semiliquid medications, with fill volumes ranging from 0.1...1000 cm³. Compared against traditional glass ampoules, BFS ampoules are inexpensive, lightweight, and shatterproof.
Plastic milk containers are plastic containers for storing, shipping and dispensing milk. Plastic bottles, sometimes called jugs, have largely replaced glass bottles for home consumption. Glass milk bottles have traditionally been reusable while light-weight plastic bottles are designed for single trips and plastic recycling.
KHS GmbH is a supplier of filling and packaging systems based in Dortmund, Germany. The company offers filling lines for glass and PET bottles, kegs, and cans for the beverage, food, and non-food industries, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Salzgitter Klöckner-Werke GmbH, a member of Salzgitter AG.
A contract packager, or co-packer, is a company that packages products for their clients. The packaging and labeling services can be used for many types of products including foods, pharmaceuticals, household products, and industrial products.
In-mould labelling is the use of paper or plastic labels during the manufacturing of containers by blow molding, injection molding, or thermoforming processes. The label serves as the integral part of the final product, which is then delivered as pre-decorated item. Combining the decoration process with the moulding process cuts the total cost, but can increase the manufacturing time. The technology was first developed by Owens-Illinois in cooperation with Procter & Gamble to supply pre-labelled bottles that could be filled on the product filling line. This was first applied to Head & Shoulders shampoo bottles.
Induction sealing is the process of bonding thermoplastic materials by induction heating. This involves controlled heating an electrically conducting object by electromagnetic induction, through heat generated in the object by eddy currents.
Tetra Pak is a Swedish multinational food packaging and processing company headquartered in Switzerland. The company offers packaging, filling machines and processing for dairy, beverages, cheese, ice cream and prepared food, including distribution tools like accumulators, cap applicators, conveyors, crate packers, film wrappers, line controllers and straw applicators.
ALPLA, otherwise ALPLA Group is an Austrian, international acting plastics manufacturer and plastics recycler headquartered in Hard, specialising in blow-moulded bottles and caps, injection-moulded parts, preforms and tubes. It is one of the largest producers of rigid plastic packaging solutions worldwide, with a total of 196 production plants in 47 countries worldwide, approx. 23,300 employees and annual sales of € 4.7 billion in 2022. In early 2021, the ALPLA Group announced that it would invest an average of 50 million euros a year until 2025 in the ongoing expansion of its recycling activities.
A plastic bottle is a bottle constructed from high-density or low density plastic. Plastic bottles are typically used to store liquids such as water, soft drinks, motor oil, cooking oil, medicine, shampoo or milk. They range in sizes, from very small bottles to large carboys. Consumer blow molded containers often have integral handles or are shaped to facilitate grasping.
IMA Life S.r.l is one of the few companies which are prominent in the manufacturing of freeze dryers especially for the pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies, aseptic processing and filling solutions. It was previously owned by the BOC Group and then the Linde Group until recently when it was bought by the IMA Group based in Italy.
Aseptic processing is a processing technique wherein commercially thermally sterilized liquid products are packaged into previously sterilized containers under sterile conditions to produce shelf-stable products that do not need refrigeration. Aseptic processing has almost completely replaced in-container sterilization of liquid foods, including milk, fruit juices and concentrates, cream, yogurt, salad dressing, liquid egg, and ice cream mix. There has been an increasing popularity for foods that contain small discrete particles, such as cottage cheese, baby foods, tomato products, fruit and vegetables, soups, and rice desserts.
Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass.
Dairy machinery encompasses and describes a wide range of machine types that are involved in the production and processing of dairy related products such as yogurt, ice cream, processed cheese, desserts and is a slightly different genre to pure milking machinery.
Sidel is a manufacturing company providing equipment and services for packaging liquids such as water; carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks; sensitive beverages such as milk, liquid dairy products, juices, tea, coffee, isotonics and beer; food and home and personal care.