Bottling and packaging

For years we were bottling our apple juice by hand on a 1950’s Swiss built wine and beerbottling machine, last used by the Wadworth Brewery and latterly a Wiltshire based winery. Between 2 men we could fill and cap 12 bottles per minute. 3000 bottles per day was our limit, to preserve morale and sanity...

Now we are very fortunate to have an automated bottling line, bought with help from the local LEADER funding project. This was last used to fill milk for the local schools in South Wales until the summer of 2009. We have just finished installing the machine at our bottling site, and will dedicate its use to bottling our range of fruit juices, but most specifically for the Hampshire Schools Juice project. The machinery can fill over 100 bottles per minute, so we’ve no time to get bored during bottling now!

We currently fill 189ml (1/3 of a pint) HDPE bottles (sold in packs of 24), and 1-litre HDPE bottles (sold in packs of 12). We can also produce 2 litre bottles, plus 5L, 10L and 20L "bag in box". These are great for kitchens and restaurants as, even once opened, can stay fresh for upto 3 months! As we attend many of the Hampshire Farmers Markets every weekend, you can come and taste the juice there, and buy bottles individually. We also use 275ml glass bottles for sale into pubs and restaurants. Both HDPE and Glass bottles are 100% recyclable.

Once the juice has been filled and sealed for freshness, it is pasteurised in our brand new, specially designed pasteuriser. This is like a large bath that the bottles sit in until all the natural yeast in the juice has been killed off – this stops the juice fermenting, and gives it a long shelf life (6 months in the HDPE bottles, 12 months in glass bottles).

Finally we store it for a couple of weeks to ensure it is of a top quality, before being collected and distributed to the schools run by Hampshire County Council and Southampton City Council. The distribution is all through 3663, who together with HC3S, have been pivotal in the smooth running of this scheme.