Epirotic uses Krones technology to reach a new target group

If you tell people in Thessaloniki that you’re headed to Ioannina and the Epirus region you’ll often hear in response: “Ioannina? Yes, it’s beautiful there. You’ll love the landscape.” And the mountains and lakes framing the Epirotic bottling company’s headquarters are a picturesque sight indeed. The Vikos Gorge that is namesake to Epirotic’s own beverage brand is part of that mountainscape. The family enterprise, which was founded in 1990, sells natural mineral water, soft drinks and juices under the Vikos brand and also contract-fills other branded products, making it the Balkans’s biggest bottler. Up till recently, the company had focussed on PET bottles. But that changed with the commissioning of two new lines from Krones.

Quality and sustainability

Besides the layout, Epirotic’s stringent quality standards for their own products were a major reason for choosing Krones. The filler the company selected for their canning line is a Modulfill VFS-C with a Modulseam seamer, which are combined in the Modulfill Bloc FS-C. The advantage of the compact block solution is an isolator design that enables a microbiologically hygienic can filling process on a small footprint.

"We are one of only a few companies to use top-quality natural mineral water for soft drinks, too. The water from our region is of great value to us, and we attach paramount importance to hygiene and a consistently high quality of our products. So the filler enclosed in a cleanroom fits in perfectly with our principles,” says Pavlo Sepetas.
 

Inner and outer values

But in the hospitality market, particularly, the products’ visual appeal counts for a lot. In line with its slogan “Pink is the new black”, Epirotic developed not only its own cola but also a pink grapefruit soda – the perfect ingredient for drinks like the paloma cocktail. For an especially upmarket look, the glass bottles of both the Vikos cola and the grapefruit soda are dressed in an out-of-the-ordinary label that gives the impression the bottle hasn’t got a label. This “no-label look” is accomplished with the help of transparent labels and an Ergomodul labeller.

Besides the aesthetic aspect, flexible packaging options are another primary consideration for Epirotic – and this is where Krones technology is in demand again: The glass line can handle both returnables and non-returnables. It features three different packers producing pack variants that are as attractive as they are efficient: two Variopac Pro packers (FS and WTS) and a Smartpac C, enabling the company to serve a variety of sales channels and target groups.

“As a techno-optimist I believe that technology is here to help and empower us to achieve what we could not do in the past. It levels the playing field between smaller and bigger players,” says Pavlo Sepetas in appreciation of his two new lines. 
 

A glimpse into the future

It will certainly take some time for Epirotic to become an established player in this new market. But even so Pavlo Sepetas already has some plans for what’s up next: “We’re currently asking ourselves a lot of questions, and in our search for answers to some of them we’ve joined forces with Krones: How can we progress automation and digitalisation in our plants? How can we reduce our ecological footprint? Which of the sustainable packaging options available will we be able to use in future?”
One of the next steps will definitely be exports, says Sepetas. And that won’t be a problem, thanks to the drinks’ extended shelf life in the new cans and glass bottles.