Bacardi Bottling Corp. Case Study To ensure that it has just the right mojo in its Mojito pre-mixed highball, the Bacardi Bottling Corp. plant in Jacksonville, Fla. uses a blend of science and art as it mixes its premium rum, flavors and special natural ingredients that are about a predictable as a Caribbean summer shower. Bacardi’s staff of experienced technicians and production “Now that we have this instrument, I think we can do personnel provide experience and art in making the newly things we never dreamed of, things we couldn’t do with introduced beverage, and an instrument from X-Rite Inc. our previous color software and hardware,” Scussel says. provides some of the science, says John Scussel, lab The technology may have application with other products supervisor for the beverage plant. of Bacardi Ltd., the world’s largest privately held spirits “We can’t just follow the exact same recipe for ever company and a manufacturer and marketer more than batch of Bacardi Mojito that we mix because of the incoming color variations of a few ingredients. Using natural ingredients can make final product appearance notoriously difficult to control,” Scussel says. “A small change in lot-to-lot color of these can make quite a difference in 200 brands and labels of popular products such as Bacardi rum, Grey Goose vodka, Dewar’s blended Scotch whiskey, Bombay Sapphire gin, and Martini vermouth. Bacardi Ltd. products can be found in more than 100 markets around the globe, and Bacardi and cola is ranked as the number our Mojito, and our consumers demand consistency in not one cocktail in the world. only taste, but appearance in our products.” Scussel says there were a number of reasons why he was It’s a costly error to mix a 10,000-gallon or more batch of persuaded that X-Rite offered just the right package of Mojito only to find that its color doesn’t match Bacardi’s strict standards, so the Bacardi plant has begun using a Color i7 benchtop spectrophotometer in transmittance hardware, software and support services for his applications. At the top of the list is X-Rite’s proprietary software created in-house that is at the same time sophisticated and mode and Color iQC software to measure 2-liter samples customer friendly. of test batches and determine just the right recipe for a full “X-Rite supports its software really well,” Scussel says. “It’s production batch. pretty obvious that X-Rite has talked with people who use color measurement instruments. The company does what xrite.com its customers want, rather than what may be easier for its standards, the system takes just minutes to produce perfor- software engineers. mance NIST traceable statistics on every instrument within “For instance, the software has just about every color a network. That allows plants to exchange spectral color theory system that anyone could possibly want, so using data with confidence they are using the same standards. a different system is just a matter of telling the software Scussel says he is thinking about enabling other aspects what you need. And the graphic representations are great. of the Color iQC software that can help with predict- We build what we call the color box – a rectangle that ing the color of products by inputting information about gives you a graphic representation of the color specs. It’s the ingredients of recipes -- essentially performing virtual easy to see, to understand and to printout. You can put trials without mixing the formulas. The beauty of X-Rite’s it in someone’s hands and show them why they are out – software is that modules can be added without having to ‘Oh, it’s a little too yellow.’” relearn a whole new software package, he says. “I don’t The Color iQC software allows customers to record have to learn things all over again,” he says. “X-Rite’s done measurements, process parameters, history and other its homework on making this easy for customers.” information in files that can then be easily shared among But it is the company’s commitment to service that finally individuals or managed between multiple locations. sold Scussel on choosing the X-Rite family of products. Since Bacardi is an international company operating 27 X-Rite engineers custom-made holders so he could use his production facilities in 17 countries including Puerto Rico, Scotland, Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Mexico, it’s desirable for instruments at various locations to be using the same standards when they are sharing results. And X-Rite’s NetProfiler technology fits that bill perfectly, Scussel says. existing stock of specialized cells for transmission measurements in the Color i7 spectrophotometers at a very reasonable cost, he says. “And X-Rite has really good service and availability,” he says. “If I pick up the phone, someone helps me.” His colleagues at a Bacardi plant in Spain are also using the X-Rite system, which allows them to easily share standards and data. “Other plants are asking questions how we are able to do our color control so easily, and I expect interest in the use of X-Rite to spread worldwide.” “NetProfiler is absolutely the cat’s meow: it allows instruments in several locations to act as one instrument,” he says. “I was concerned about how to keep the instrument calibrated until I learned that you can use NetProfiler to do a test onsite. And if the instruments still doesn’t calibrate properly, X-Rite has a strong support system for getting it fixed.” The NetProfiler2 system allows companies to automatically test, measure, and profile their instruments over the Internet, ensuring that every instrument is running at peak accuracy. Using proprietary software and certified physical X-Rite World Headquarters Grand Rapids, Michigan USA • (800) 248-9748 • +1 616 803 2100 • xrite.com © 2011 X-Rite, Incorporated. All rights reserved. (01/11)
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