The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded GEA a letter of no objection for its ABF 1.2 technology, an integrated blowing, filling and capping solution with a fully aseptic rotary blowing machine in July 2018.
The system has a 100% aseptic blower that is allowed to produce shelf-stable low acid beverages free from preservatives for distribution at ambient temperature in the US.
The FDA testing is considered one of the most comprehensive validation protocols available in the aseptic beverage market, which ensures enhanced product safety.
The FDA clearance confirms that GEA’s ABF 1.2 technology ensures maximum sterilization efficiency and reliability during every step of sensitive beverage bottling.
GEA passed the validation tests which were performed on an ABF 1.2 system installed in the US – and which is now already producing and delivering shelf-stable liquid dairy products to the North-American market.
The GEA solution is based on an integrated blowing, filling and capping process that runs within a 100% aseptic environment.
With the microbiological isolator, GEA ABF 1.2 aseptically blows preforms that have been previously treated with hydrogen peroxide vapor.
The result is a single zone sterilization process that requires no water and significantly fewer chemicals.
To achieve complete sterility during operations, GEA product manager Massimo Nascimbeni says, “We achieve this by placing the aseptic blowing wheel in the same sterile zone where the filling and capping processes are performed.”
“The newly blown sterile bottles are transferred to the filling and capping carousels without leaving the sterile zone.”
“That’s why we don’t need any unnecessary H2O2 carry-over in the following modules.”
Beverage producers can monitor and control the preform sterilization process with the unique GEA Smart Sensor, which checks the spraying performance of each sterilization nozzle just before the preforms are treated.
The environmental sterilization process is completely automated requiring no manual intervention from the operator, therefore greatly decreasing any risk of system recontamination.
 awarded GEA a letter of no objection (LONO) for its ABF 1.2 technology, an integrated blowing, filling and capping solution with a fully aseptic rotary blowing machine in July 2018.){kind=link}