Packaging Inspection Equipment

For as long as there have been commercially produced beverages, there have been half-baked urban legends about sinister items like syringes and other unsavory things supposedly lurking inside beverage containers. Given the level of sophistication delivered by modern beverage inspection equipment, the odds of a mass produced beverage containing foreign matter is highly unlikely. But that's not to say the equipment doesn't have its work cut out for it. Even transparent plastic packaging poses unique challenges in terms of inspection quality control, says Rick Reardon, product line manager, Teledyne TapTone, North Falmouth, Mass. 'Packagers are faced with new and sometimes challenging applications such as liquid nitrogen (LN2) dosing containers at high production speeds. Hot filling plastic beverage containers or introducing a new cap or closure can also create special challenges for beverage manufacturers who traditionally packaged in glass,” he says. 'Quality control has become an issue we find many packagers are grappling with and leak detection in plastic containers has become a priority.” Teledyne TapTone's series of inspection systems are designed specifically to address the issue of leak detection in pressurized and non-pressurized plastic containers at full production speeds.