Integrated food container cleaning and sterilisation station - Bad Schwartau (DEU)

Schwartauer Werke GmbH is a well-known German manufacturer of fruit products like jams and cereal bars. Since 1899 the company has operated different factories under its name in its home town of Bad Schwartau. The company is a subsidiary of Swiss based Hero, a large multinational food company.

Schwartauer Werke supplies products in many different forms of packaging; from glass jars to 1000 kg stainless steel food containers. The growth of deliveries to the German food industry has developed rapidly over the last years, especially products delivered in stainless steel food containers has emerged as an important supply chain.

In order to comply with stringent food safety and quality standards Schwartauer Werke decided to invest in an in-house container cleaning and sterilisation station. By insourcing these activities the company fully controls the process and is best positioned to meet customer needs.

A number of equipment suppliers were consulted in the pre-ordering phase. Since Gröninger had considerable experience in this field and came up with the best engineering solution, Schwartauer Werke teamed up with Gröninger for the project.

Since the spring of 2018 the brand new, fully automated cleaning booth for stainless steel food containers is in operation. The systems clean both the inside and outside of the containers using high and low pressure pumps. An integrated data logging feature allows Schwartauer to build up a cleaning and sterilisation history per container operated in the supply chain.

Following the cleaning all food containers are sterilised and tested in overpressure with nitrogen or sterilised air. This way all Schwartauer customers can be assured of perfectly handled containers with excellent product. Like Schwartau is saying: “Echt gut gemacht!” (made perfectly).