French champagne house Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin (VCP) has unveiled a new Cermex end-of-line packaging system installed to pack a new presentation box for the distinctive sparkling wine.

The champagne house, based in Reims, has installed the line to pack its newly-launched Design Box, a presentation box created by the company and SCA Packaging, in cases of 6 or 12 cartons.

Stéphane Bernelas, one of VCP's engineers who worked on the project, said the boxes are designed to "increase Veuve Clicquot's perception as a luxury product and reinforce its position as an innovative champagne house".

The new line from Cermex, a subsidiary of Tetra Laval-owned Sidel, is capable of handling 16 different formats of packing and is able to pack up to 8,500 bottles every hour.

A key element of the line, which is one of three at the VCP facility and includes Fanuc robots, a gantry packer, a tray erector, a case packer and a palletizer, is the automation of format changeovers. Times to change formats have been reduced from around two hours to less than 20 minutes compared to the previous set-up.