Founded in 1970, Willowton is a family-owned business in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. With its innovative approach and hands-on attitude, Willowton has established itself as one of Africa’s leading oil seed processors and edible oil packers. It is the top edible oil manufacturer in South Africa, too, and it owns the country’s leading sunflower oil brand, Sunfoil. Thanks to its in-house oil refinery that has been in operation for over four decades, this regional powerhouse also produces edible oil for retail brands.
To increase its yearly production volumes and differentiate its Sunfoil brand from traditional edible oil brands with generic container shapes, Willowton decided to partner with Sidel to produce its PET containers in-house. To achieve this, the company acquired two Sidel EvoBLOW™ standalone blowers and relied on Sidel’s packaging design skills and experience to help it develop customised family bottle shapes.
Superior production flexibility
One of the many benefits these new standalone blowers offer is a more independent bottle production set-up. The equipment also enables efficient production planning and reduces warehouse space. The SBO 16 EvoBLOW produces a 2 L format while the SBO 10 EvoBLOW produces all bottle formats up to 1 L. As the latter manages various bottle formats, Willowton also chose to install a mould Bottle Switch™ system to conduct ultrarapid bottle changeovers. “This easy way to adapt our oil production to the fast-moving market demands contribute to a great production flexibility,” comments Faisal Modi, Operations Manager at Willowton. This system is based on repeatable, tool-free operations that mean the operator spends only 30 seconds per cavity, thereby increasing production flexibility, equipment availability and production uptime. Both machines can operate at an efficiency level of 99.5% regardless of the End-of-Line performance, thanks to the production buffer created by the storage silos located on the lines. “With those two blowers, we already increased our yearly production volume by 50% and we are ready to handle any future additional demand as well,” explains Faisal Modi. In order to meet consumer expectations in terms of superior hygiene standards, the two Sidel blowers have been equipped with different options to ensure production integrity. These include preform dedusting, air filtration, air recovery and automatic centralised greasing.
