At retail, beverage packages are tasked with not only displaying an attractive shelf presence but also ensuring the quality of the product and the integrity of the brand. “Quality is fundamentally about building and maintaining your name in the market,” says Mike Lawn, director of BBull USA Inc., Oldsmar, Fla. “It can take years to develop, but with today’s global socialized media, it can be lost with just one incident.” For this reason, it is important that beverage-makers employ inspection equipment to keep product quality in-check, he says.
Concerns for consumer safety are one of the major drivers for wanting to ensure quality by incorporating inspection equipment into production lines, says Rick Reardon, manager of FT System North America, Suwanee, Ga. For example, it is important to check all empty containers for foreign objects and check glass bottles for chips or cracks prior to filling in order to prevent safety issues down the road, he says.