Damavand adapts production to meet European demand for value-added foods

Damavand, a key player in the Greek tomato processing industry, has reinforced its 25-year partnership with SIG by installing the advanced SIG Compact 12 Aseptic Food filling machine at its Filia, Karditsa facility. This strategic investment secures the firm’s operational agility and product diversification to meet evolving European industry demands.

The primary driver for this upgrade is the growing demand from European retailers for value-added, differentiated food products. The new technology enables Damavand to strategically pivot its portfolio from traditional commodity items (like passata and chopped tomatoes) toward high-margin, complex formulations such as sophisticated pasta and pizza sauces.

The product flexibility provided by the SIG Compact 12 is the critical enabler for this market adaptation:

• Handling complexity: the machine can process products with up to 50% solid particulate content, including chunks up to 25 mm and fibres up to 40 mm. This technical capacity directly translates into the ability to formulate the chunky, high-viscosity sauces that meet current consumer trends
• Viscosity management: it handles viscosities up to 5,000 mPas, ensuring that rich, slow-flowing recipes — often required for premium positioning — can be processed and filled aseptically without compromising quality or speed.

As Vasilis Xarchas, head of sales at Damavand, explains, this is a strategic move: “Building on years of successful collaboration with leading retailers across Europe, we’re now in a position to meet their growing demand for added-value products. We can leverage our deep expertise to conceptualise entirely new products, test their viability, and provide unique solutions from inception to shelf.”

The enhanced production capabilities of the new machine provide Damavand with a significant competitive edge in responding quickly to retailer requirements, particularly in the private label sector.

The machine’s efficiency and format agility ensures maximum market responsiveness:

• Customised servicing: the machine offers the ability to fill up to seven different volume sizes (200 ml to 500 ml) at a high throughput of 12,000 packs per hour. This agility allows Damavand to quickly switch formats to align with specific retailer promotions or private label packaging needs
• Comprehensive coverage: when combined with the existing SIG Standard 12 Aseptic, the total production line can now service the entire spectrum of volume demands, ranging from single-serve 200 ml packs up to 1  litre cartons
• Maximising uptime: operational efficiency is enhanced by the semi-automatic cleaning feature, which reduces downtime per cleaning cycle by a crucial three minutes, ensuring higher continuous output and faster order fulfilment.

The technology ensures that this flexibility does not come at the expense of food safety. SIG’s sleeve-based system maintains aseptic integrity by ultrasonically sealing the packs above the filling level. This method is vital for high-particulate products, as it guarantees that chunks and fibres cannot be trapped in the seal, providing maximum assurance for extended shelf life without preservatives or refrigeration.