DairyReporter.com spoke with Claranor managing director, Christophe Rieder, last month at drinktec 2013 in Munich, where the French firm was exhibiting its newest prototype - a machine that harnesses the power of pulsed light to sterilize bottle caps for aseptically-filled and ESL products.
The prototype (left) was shipped off to Germany after drinktec, where it will be tested by in partnership with a local dairy processor for around six months.
Claranor expects that once verified, the main market for its development will ESL. The company has made it its aim, however, "to prove" that the technology can meet high aseptic log reduction requirements.
"We are aware that the main part of the market is in the sensitive, so below the aseptic requirements," said Rieder.
"We know that our main market will be in the ultra clean, and not in the aseptic, but we have to prove that we are able to go to aseptic because if you can do that, you can provide a lower efficiency."
The patented technology, which is an approximate 70 cm square, offers a 5-log bacterial reduction and can sterilize up to 23,000 caps per hour. According to Rieder, this makes it a smaller, more economical, and more environmentally-friendly alternative to many traditional treatments.
"If you compare to conventional treatment, you have machines using many squares meters to chemically treat the packaging. With pulsed light you also don't have the drawbacks of having residues of chemicals," he said.
"You have with pulsed light something dry without residues in the environment also, and of course in terms of energy consumption this is very low," he added.