The phone call
It was a work afternoon like so many others, and while I was in the office, my mobile phone began to ring.
“Hi Harry, how are you?”. Harry is one of our agents in Southeast Asia and we are often in touch to deal with opportunities and mishaps in that area. Fortunately, as in this case, the opportunities are often greater than the inconveniences.
“Hi Pier, fine thanks. I’ve got something for you in Bali; a wine producer I know has got a bottle filler that isn’t working properly and he’s in trouble. Can we have a chat?”.
The wine market has always held a great appeal. We are in fact talking about one of the élites of the Beverage industry, that also requires a huge amount of preparation and know-how in terms of processing and filling technology. Right from the start, then, Harry’s proposal looked very interesting and his call allowed our group to get to know the Sababay winery, one of the main wine producers in Bali.
Sababay
Sababay is a very well-known winery in Bali, where it organizes guided tours and tastings which are always appreciated by locals and tourists. It produces both still and sparkling red and white wines, but at that time was facing significant production problems that risked seriously damaging its business.
From the preliminary exploratory meeting, it had in fact emerged that Sababay needed support for various aspects. The winery needed a new bottle filler that would overcome the current reliability problems and it also wanted to take a step forwards is terms of quality and productivity. Not only this: the wine production plant at Sababay was still tied very much with tradition, meaning an almost total absence of automation in the production phases.
The race to win the project put us in competition with some of the best manufacturers of wine-making equipment in the world. Although the wine sector is not among the main markets where CFT Group usually competes, our technology for this industry is on a par with the major players. This is thanks to the fact that CFT Group came about from the union of various brands, each with a specific know-how, some of which enjoyed a significant position in the market of equipment for wine production.
Once Sababay was convinced from a technical point of view, what allowed us to stand out from the others was the possibility of also offering local support following installation, thanks to Harry and our branches in that area.
There are not many companies that can boast a widespread presence like that of CFT Group and having technical support in your own area is often an important factor in the customer’s decision.
CFT Group solution
The bottle filler supplied to Sababay is part of CFT Group’s Master line, an isobarometric filler capable of reaching a speed of 60,000 bph, a perfect solution for still, semi-sparkling and sparkling drinks.
In this case, given the product and the needs of the customer, the equipment installed had a capacity of 4,500 bph.
For the occasion, Sababay decided to use an innovative closure for the bottle, which is widespread especially in Australia. The Zork closure has a shape that is very similar to a champagne cork, but is made of plastic. The advantage is that it keeps the bottle perfectly sealed, even without the use of the wire cage and can be easily reinserted into the bottle, really useful in countries where yes, wine is consumed, but in smaller quantities than it is in Europe. The bottle filler was therefore customised for Sababay, in order to integrate the capping machine suitable for this type of closure. In addition to this type of Zork closure, the machine is also capable of capping aluminium screw-top bottles with a 30×60 mm cap.
Sababay also needed the support of CFT Group to transition from largely manual processing to a highly automated wine production plant. To do this, we put in place some of our best technicians, who worked on site together with the company, putting their vast experience into play, helping the Sababay team to optimise its equipment in the best way.
For the winery it was therefore a useful moment to review and adapt its wine production plant’s procedures, accompanied by advice from CFT Group both for the installation of the machines and for production organisation. The arrival of the product, its storage, the insertion in the line and the washing system were optimised and where possible automated, to the huge satisfaction of the customer and consequently also to the technicians, to me and to Harry. The bottle with the Zork closure was an innovation for the Bali wine market and the plant has managed the new type of closure very well, which in a short time also became a marketing tool for Sababay wines.
I am particularly fond of the “Sababay project”, primarily because it shows that CFT Group can compete in the wine production industry on a level pegging with other companies who are much more focused on this market.
Another reason for feeling satisfied is the fact that it was not only an opportunity to supply a customer with our technology, but also accompany them and guide them in the growth process of their company.
Piermario Zuccati – Sales Area Manager (and narrator)
Harry Nazarudin – Sales Representative
Stefano Casini – Project Manager
Manuel Varacchi and Pietro Pocaterra – Technical support
Market prospects
The wine market is expected to grow with an average rate of 5.8{46ec2a3493715af7728c32a403f8e2e213c1486a2b6674762cf12f27ee9af20a} in the next 4 years. Asia-Pacific is the area where the most important development is expected, thanks also to the fact that many more wine production plants are appearing in China, Japan and India *.
Source: mordorintelligence.com