Glenpatrick Spring Water relies on a highly versatile canning line - Krones

First PET, now cans – Glenpatrick Spring Water has once again opted for technology made by Krones. The new canning line is a true multitasker. It will enable the Irish co-packer to offer its wide variety of products – ranging from water, CSDs and alcopops right through to beer – in cans as well.

The tranquil small town of Clonmel – home to just 20,000 inhabitants – in Ireland’s south is embedded in lush green meadows and surrounded by gently rolling hills and mountains. One of them is Slievenamon Mountain which is around 700 metres high and particularly well known for its limestone rock. One of Ireland’s few mineral water springs wells up here, and Glenpatrick draws the water for its products from precisely that spring.

The Irish company produces its own drinks and also operates as a co-packer, not only for water but for a wide range of different beverages. Its customer list includes large supermarket chains in Ireland, the UK and the USA. A total of four water wells from which Glenpatrick draws both spring water and mineral water are located on the company’s premises in Clonmel, which cover an area of 22,000 square metres (almost 237,000 square feet). The water has so far been filled into glass or PET containers. And that is precisely where Krones enters the stage: Since 2012, the Neutraubling-based group has supplied machines to the Clonmel facility, where all four PET lines meanwhile feature Krones kit either throughout or in parts.

The lines up and running at Glenpatrick include a PET line from Krones, featuring a Contiform Speed machine for stretch blow-moulding the bottles, … Image credits:
Glenpatrick Spring Water
… a Contiroll for dressing the containers in wrap-around labels … Image credits:
Glenpatrick Spring Water
… and a Modulpal Pro palletiser with an upstream Robobox T-GS grouping station. Image credits:
Glenpatrick Spring Water

And 2025 will see more Krones equipment added, this time marking a premiere for Glenpatrick because the company has chosen to install its first canning line. “As part of our portfolio offer, we constantly review our packaging capabilities which currently includes PET bottles, pouches, glass bottles and hot filled PET bottles. The enquiries from our customers base around the capability to fill our liquid solutions into cans commenced shortly after the Covid Crisis and have increased exponentially over the last two years. We are now absolutely confident that our partnership with Krones on canning will deliver leading edge solutions and innovative packaging options to our Retail and B/B Partners”, states Kieran Hynes, Glenpatrick’s Managing Director.

Filling and packaging allrounder

As a co-packer, Glenpatrick aims to cater for a diverse spectrum of customer specifications and so keeps all its options open with the canning line, too, in regard to both product range and packaging. For filling, the company has chosen a Krones Modulfill VFS-C with a Modulseam can seamer rated at 52,000 containers per hour. This combination is able to handle flavoured waters, softdrinks and energy drinks as well as still and carbonated waters, is suitable for alcoholic products like alcopops and has even been prepared for filling beer. And it is also maximally flexible as far as container types are concerned, handling slim, sleek and standard cans ranging in size from 0.15 to 0.5 litres.

Allrounder beim Abfüllen und Verpacken 2 — Managing Director Kieran Hynes Image credits: Glenpatrick Spring Water

“In relation to capital investment we now model and benchmark based on multiple factors beyond cost, including energy efficiency, service levels, innovation, estimated useful life, reliability, and lifetime maintenance costs. In this regard the Krones proposal for the canning line was leading edge and, most importantly, now allows us to offer the best solutions to our customers whilst also meeting key internal stakeholder criteria”, says Kieran Hynes.

What’s more, it is possible to pass cans with products requiring pasteurisation through a LinaFlex machine, which can be bypassed if not needed. The filled containers are packed in a Variopac Pro TFS-4, which either puts individual cans on trays or inserts them into four-, six- or eight-can cartons on tray-shrink packs carrying a total of 24 cans.

“We are proud that Glenpatrick Spring Water has again put its trust in us and placed its order for a new state-of-the-art canning line with us,” says Alfred Ackbarow from the sales team at Krones UK. This summer, the systems from Neutraubling, Rosenheim and Flensburg will be taken to Clonmel by road and water freight where they will then be erected and commissioned in Glenpatrick’s plant. The first ready-for-sale canned drinks are scheduled to come off the line in autumn 2025.

Part of a strong conglomerate

Glenpatrick Spring Water belongs to the Queally group of companies, which today ranks among Europe’s biggest privately owned conglomerates, employing more than 10,000 people in over 300 firms. Co-packing drinks is just one of many different business lines. Originally founded as an agricultural enterprise, the Queally Group maintains a strong focus on the food sector, mainly meat processing.