SIBCO is the licensee that bottles and distributes Pepsi and other PepsiCo brands in Saudi Arabia. Erik Driessen describes Isle’s site visit there.
SIBCO is the licensee that bottles and distributes Pepsi and other PepsiCo brands in Saudi Arabia. The SIBCO bottling facility near Jeddah is where 10 trucks leave on the hour, every hour to supply the whole kingdom of freshly bottled Pepsi, 7up and other soft drinks.
Volume-wise, the most important ingredient of soft drinks is water. The bottling plant receives 550 m³/hr desalinated seawater from the water utility Sawaco to produce soft drinks, clean machines and cool processes. SIBCO is improving their operations continuously and is always interested in novel water technologies that can secure product integrity, increase efficiency and reduce the need for water, energy and chemicals. The global network, solid expertise and huge database of innovative water technologies was the reason SIBCO reached out to Isle. They requested of Isle a full audit on water processes.
On their site visit which spanned multiple days, Isle interviewed several SIBCO specialists, operational engineers and managers. Isle also inspected all water related processes from water intake and product water treatment to wastewater treatment. After the 3 days, Isle presented their findings and observations to the SIBCO staff. Among some basic observations and pragmatic suggestions for operational improvements, Isle presented 25 innovative technologies that could solve some physical issues but also (and mainly) to improve the overall efficiency, secure continuity and reduce SIBCO’s water and carbon footprint.
SIBCO and Isle will continue working together to secure implementation of some of the most promising technologies, troubleshoot urgent issues and to repeat the water audit regularly.