Alcohol tube shots sleeving – filling – sealing line

A Danish company with production capacity in the Netherlands made additional investments in the quickly growing hype of alcoholic shots in plastic tubes that are highly popular at festivals.

After a full process analysis, the customer selected a carrousel type configuration equipped with individual pucks. The entire production system is made of two main elements. A shrink sleeve carrousel wraps a shrink sleeve around the empty tubes, while an automatic transfer system transfers the tubes to the filling carrousel. This results into an effective capacity of 3,000 tubes per hour.

The empty sleeved tubes are handled by the automated transfer system and turned around 180° so that the opening is positioned correctly on the filling carrousel. These are then equipped with an optional side-label, filled per eight pieces with 20ml alcoholic shots that contain up to 30% alcohol, after which they are sealed with a push-on cap and a seal label is added. The only remaining manual actions are placing the empty tubes on the pucks of the shrink sleeve carrousel and picking the finalized shot tubes from the pucks on the filling carrousel.

This project is another successful example of a great and efficient collaboration between partners EFM Machinery and Scaligera Packaging. The line became operational in April 2015.