1START WITH PURE WATER!

Soft drinks begin with purified water (much clearer than the tap water you drink at home). The soft drink manufacturer filters tap water through fine, clean sand and gravel to get rid of any undissolved impurities that may pass through the finished drink and ensures that the water does not contain any unwanted particles.

2ADD THE FLAVOUR

Once the water is purified, flavourings are added. These are prepared from natural and nature identical sources and are added toa mixture of sugar and purified water to make a syrup. This forms the soft drink base.

3NEXT STEP, ADD THE BUBBLES

The purified water and syrup base are then blended together to form a 'still' drink and then mixed with carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in a machine called a carbonator.

4FILLING THE BOTTLES

After the drink has been carbonated, it is transferred under pressure to the filling machine. Here, the bottles or cans are filled and are then passed by conveyor belt to the sealing machine.

5THE FINAL STAGE

The sealed bottles and cans are still quite cold at this stage, and if packed at this temperature, moisture which forms on the container because of condensation would cause the cartons to become wet and less manageable. To prevent this the bottles and cans are passed through a hot water spray to bring them up to 'room' temperature.

6LABELS & PACKAGING

Most soft drink bottles have labels applied by a labelling machine. There are still some bottles, mostly returnable, which have the label information printed directly on to the glass. Cans also have the label printed on them, before they arrive at the soft drink manufacturing plant.