Does anyone have experience of carbonated beverage manufacturing?

Hello out  there in Quality land. I hope you are all doing well. I am the quality guy for a co-manufacturer / co-packing company. This position is high exposure to different products and product lines due to the nature of what we do.  The owner of the company is "threatening" to purchase a line to produce carbonated beverages in cans. A machine that runs 33,000 an hour. So this brutal learning curve I am experiencing has no end in sight. Some talk about carbonated fruit juice with lumps of fruit in it, some talk about energy drinks.

Do any of y'all work with similar machines? What would be the major implications in running the two different products mentioned above? 

Just starting the process of learning about all this as I have previously been involved in dry blends, so if y'all have any reference to great threads here, or organizations/resource material I would really love it.

Thank you!!

Hi Plastic Ducky,

This is a question that is potentially quite broad (as you'll have realised!) and to an extent may depend on the specifics of the equipment your boss is kindly buying for you.

We're at the ingredients supply end of this process, but have a lot of clients either packing with this type of equipment or using subcontractors to pack.

As a rather broad generalisation, juices want to be processed relatively gently so as not to damage them - many are sensitive to colour/flavour problems if overexposed to thermal processes, and aggressive high-shear mixing processes / homogenisers will break up the cells (juice vesicles) if you're packing e.g. orange juice with bits.

By contrast, some types of soft drinks really do benefit from being given a jolly good kicking during preparation, with homogenisation a necessity for some, and high shear mixing also potentially essential for some product types.

I do also know of some sites that have set themselves up specifically for soft drinks and been subsequently asked to pack juices with pulp that they've really struggled with due to filler design.

If this is going to be brand new kit then talk to the supplier about the range of products that you're looking to handle and ideally give them samples of various raw materials / target types of finished product so they can get their heads around what your boss actually wants to accomplish and spec accordingly.