„Dolce Gusto“ is a new single serve beverage capsule from Nestlé

Innovative aspect: This new single serve capsule is a high-tech packaging for hot and cold beverages. It provides maximum consumer convenience combined with superior product quality. Different to many other single portion systems, the beverage extraction technology is mainly engineered into the capsule itself rather than into the extraction machine. Furthermore, the capsules itself is the 100% barrier package and not the secondary packaging. Our role has been that of concurrently engineering the assembly and filling machine for this package and providing important contribution to the design of the capsule from a manufacturing point of view whilst the beverage concept was still in the development phase.

Composition of materials and filling goods (the materials are assembled on the machine):

• Multilayer capsule in barrier structure (with EVOH), some beverages are composed of two capsules – one with milk powder (white capsule) and one with coffee or chocolate powder (brown or black capsule)
• Plastic distributor disk in the bottom of the capsule
• Aluminium membrane heat-sealed over the disk
• Filling goods: Rost&ground coffee, milk powder, chocolate powder, others to come soon
• Monolayer plastic membrane (punctured), ultrasonic sealed over some filling goods (roast &ground coffee)
• Multilayer top membrane, colour printed, in various designs, heat-sealed

Way of functioning
The consumer enters the capsule into the extraction machine and selects “hot” or “cold” beverage. Water is injected at high pressure (14 bars/200 psi) into the capsule to extract the content. For some products, the capsule is filled to the top, e.g. milk powder, and all the products is dissolved. For coffee it is only half full and the product is extracted / brewed. For such a case the punctured “distributor membrane” ensures proper extraction by creating a number of streams through the coffee and avoiding a “channelling” effect.
Once the pressure inside the capsules builds up it pushes the aluminium membrane in the bottom against the distributor disk with spikes. Consequently, the spikes punctures the foil and the product is released through a number of channels in the distributor disk directly into the cup. This means the capsule is opened by the water pressure only, not by any mechanical device.
Since the product flow does not touch any part of the machine, it stays clean and different beverages can be prepared without cross-contamination of flavours.

Our role
We have concurrently engineered a custom made assembly and filling machine for this package whilst the capsule and extraction method were still in the development phase. Throughout this phase we provided key-contribution to the design of the capsule from a manufacturing point of view to make sure cost and efficiency targets could be met. The filling machine uses three special sealing technologies since it is of key importance that the capsules open by the bottom membrane and not by a burst in the top membrane.
All this has been done in very close collaboration with our customer and under extreme time pressure, giving just 12 months from initial launch of the project to the delivery of the first custom made machine.

Name/product that we are marketing
Our filling & sealing machine type “Rychiger FS Flexy 640”.

Customers company name
Nestlé. In particular Nestle UK

Date introduced
October 2006

Where can it be purchased
Currently in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. Other countries will follow soon.