Acqua Sant'Anna di Vinadio

Innovation and sustainability moving the same way

Acqua Sant'Anna is a cutting-edge industrial company located in the heart of the Maritime Alps that has been able to value the natural wealth of mineral water which flows from two springs situated in the municipality of Vinadio, province of Cuneo, in the upper Stura Valley - Italy, in the full respect of the natural environment. The Piedmont–based company closed 2020 with sales up 10% from € 320 million in 2019 and a production potential of 3.5 billion bottles per year.
Acqua Sant'Anna is one of the highest quality natural mineral waters in the world known for being pure, light and low-sodium. The factory has 16 bottling lines, the fastest of which fills 81,000 bottles per hour.

This Italian excellence has grown year after year thanks to the far-sighted vision of its founder, Alberto Bertone, who is also President and CEO. Acqua Sant'Anna was one of the first Italian companies to invest in all-round innovation, from the product to the factory, developing a supply chain without weak links to continue offering a service of the highest quality to end consumers always attentive to the environment. It is not by chance that the company was one of the first in Italy, precisely in 2008, to create an eco-friendly mineral water bottle called BioBottle. Made with a special polymer obtained from fermented sugars contained in plants, without even a drop of petroleum or petroleum products, it is biodegradable and compostable in about 80 days in industrial composting facilities plants. This real revolution in packaging exploits the characteristics of a particular biopolymer obtained from the natural fermentation of sugars contained in plants. In addition to the evident saving of non-renewable resources and the reduction of emissions during production, the many laboratory tests carried out on the product have demonstrated that this material guarantees that the water is preserved in the best possible way, maintaining its organoleptic properties because the container is absolutely natural and respects the contents.

Acqua Sant'Anna chose our Group to be at their side along the path aiming to improve the processes and make them safer, more sustainable and efficient already ten years ago. "The encounter between Acqua Sant'Anna and E80 Group was a win for both of us", President Bertone explains.
"From Acqua Sant'Anna's point of view, it allowed us to see the future in a completely different way, giving us the possibility to completely transform the intralogistics of our factory, making it integrated and automated through advanced systems that have allowed us to reduce waste and work in a more organized way. For E80, it was the opportunity to transform the ideas, or rather the dreams they had, into fruition, bringing Acqua Sant'Anna to success".

The decision to invest in state-of-the-art intralogistics solutions was a significant contribution to achieving the company's objectives. By optimizing the existing factory space, renovated according to the most modern green building standards, and without the need to build other infrastructures, today the company in Vinadio, which has 16 bottling lines, the fastest of which fills 81,000 bottles per hour, can palletize up to 2 million bottles per day and ship 10 million. The system guarantees fast size changes, a general increase in line efficiency and the possibility of cross-docking.

One of the key systems of this Piedmont-based Smart Factory are the laser-guided vehicles that integrate E80’s compact robotized end-of-line systems to the shipments and interconnect all operations, pre-form feeding, caps and empty pallets, for instance. "They are automated vehicles that respond to the inputs of a central software, capable of managing internal logistics, from storage to the pallets leaving the warehouse. These vehicles move completely autonomously, transfer goods and can load pallets of water bottles onto trucks, distinguishing between types of water, sizes and quantities - Bertone said -. In addition to guaranteeing an accuracy higher than 99.5%, these vehicles respect the environment, because they work with rechargeable batteries. By exploiting the entirely made-in-Italy innovative technology developed by E80, they increase safety at work, eliminating accidents to people and damage to products".

Accompanying the growth of Acqua Sant'Anna is also the 24-hour digital service offered by our team. This is a fundamental service for a factory that produces on three shifts, seven days a week because it always ensures maximum system availability, promoting optimization and protecting the customer's investment over time.

"Equipping ourselves with innovative logistics is fundamental for us", President Bertone adds. With such a high-tech factory, we need high-tech logistics. The goal is always to guarantee our customers the best service and total product traceability. Furthermore, we need to produce and deliver immediately because we do not have a warehouse. In these years of transformation, especially thanks to digital and online channels, it is precisely the relationship between producers and consumers that is changing so much. Companies will increasingly be called upon to produce and deliver directly to the end customers. Integrated intralogistics plays a major role because it allows real-time monitoring of all processes, reducing time and errors, and guaranteeing maximum reliability of operations".

This ability to always look ahead has led Acqua Sant'Anna to invest another 10 million in 2021 to expand the range of LGV systems and purchase a new bottling line to increase the efficiency of the factory. "Our strength has always been continuous research, constant investment in technology, innovation and development of new products, making the most of the skills of our in-house resources", President Bertone adds.

Interview with Alberto Bertone, President and CEO of Acqua Sant'Anna from E80 Group on Vimeo.

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