The beverages line, station by station.

A beverage line turns juice, dairy-alternative or soft drink product into filled, sealed and palletised containers, and hygiene and heat treatment set the rules for every station. The line starts after ingredient handling and blending. Syrups, concentrates, juices, plant bases and water are mixed in batching tanks to the recipe, filtered and deaerated as needed. The product then goes to the pasteuriser. Juices, nectars, plant-based drinks and many soft drinks are heat-treated in plate or tubular heat exchangers to make them safe and extend shelf life; tubular designs suit drinks with pulp or particles. Some drinks are instead pasteurised after filling in tunnel pasteurisers, and shelf-stable drinks receive a more intense heat treatment followed by aseptic filling. The homogeniser is used for drinks that contain fat or particles that would otherwise separate, such as plant-based drinks, cloudy juices, nectars, protein drinks and flavour emulsions. It gives a uniform product with stable cloud and mouthfeel through the shelf life. Filling machines then dose product into bottles, cans, cartons or pouches. Carbonated drinks need counter-pressure filling to keep their gas; still drinks can use gravity, flowmeter or net-weight filling. The hygiene level of the filler must match the product: clean for chilled drinks, ultra-clean or aseptic for longer shelf-life products. Fillers are usually combined with rinsers and cappers, followed by coding, fill-level inspection and labelling. Wrapping machines group bottles or cans into shrink-wrapped multipacks or bundles, often on trays, which protects them and makes handling easier for retailers. Case packers load bottles or multipacks into cases or wrap-around cartons where the pack format calls for them. Finally, the palletiser builds stable loads from cases, trays and shrink packs, which are often heavy and slippery, before stretch wrapping and dispatch. On most beverage lines the filler sets the speed, and the machines downstream are sized with extra capacity so they can clear any backlog after a stop.