Norwich – Allyn Brown shut down his bottling line at his Connecticut Currant juice company in Preston on May 15, but it wasn’t to take a rest from the busy operation.

Instead, he had to work on his new juice bottling plant in the  Stanley Israelite Norwich Business Park.

“I worked three 14-hour days on Memorial Day weekend,” Brown said Wednesday.

For the first time in 15 years, machines are humming at a former pharmaceutical plant at 29 Stott Ave. A new sign for Norwich Beverage Co., its logo depicting a blossoming rose inside a water droplet, will be erected at the entrance.

“I need to put the sign up,” Brown said. “My contractors are having trouble finding me.”

Brown bought the former Sybron Chemical Inc. in October under the name Norwich Beverage Holdings LLC for $665,000. A jungle of poison ivy climbing a side wall and overgrown weeds concealed most of the building at the time.

Contractors concentrated on cleaning the grimy, moldy interior, ripping out walls and forming new rooms with new piping and custom equipment needed for a juice bottling plant.

Brown said the total project cost topped $1 million, including the purchase price. Now, Brown, president of Norwich Beverage Co., is ready to trade his construction manager hat for a more pleasant role in marketing and sales.

Because the plant is small enough, Brown can work with start-up companies to try out different products. He will do a test run this month for a Massachusetts company that makes calcium juice drinks for women. He is working with a ginger drink company in New Jersey, a sugar cane drink company in Long Island and a new juice company in Fairfield. State law prohibits bottled water companies from using water lines to bottle juices, so Brown hopes to bottle flavored water.

“We can do anything that’s a flowable drink,” he said. “We can do smoothies, iced tea, ice coffee” – as long as it has nondairy creamer, he added.

Existing customers from Connecticut Currant already have endorsed the new plant. Maple Lane Farms pioneered the harvesting of nutritious black currants for juice under the label Currant Affair, now in several flavor blends. Brown also bottled Maple Lane’s cider at the Preston plant. Connecticut Currant now will be a customer of Norwich Beverage Co.

Dan Ehrlich, CEO of Powerhouse Beverage Co. of Huntington, N.Y., makers of IQ Juice, said his company “grew” with Brown. Ehrlich learned about Brown's operation from another bottler when IQ was launched in 2012. IQ now has eight juices that will be bottled at the new Norwich plant.

“They do a really great job,” Ehrlich said. “They’re really awesome people.”

Robin Chesmer, managing member of Farmer’s Cow and operator of Gray Wall Farm in Lebanon, said the cooperative’s eight-year relationship with Brown, starting with Farmer’s Cow cider, now has the first product on the line in Norwich.

“We developed our own recipe of lemonade, iced tea and fruit lemonade,” Chesmer said. “It’s nice to work with another farmer, and it’s nice to work with a local bottling company. It’s a quality place.”

Chesmer said he saw the new plant before the three-week rush to install equipment and turn on the switches.

“I look forward to seeing it in operation,” he said.

On Wednesday, Norwich Beverage Co.’s three shiny new 1,000-gallon juice tanks contained Farmer’s Cow products – lemonade, iced tea and one with a combination mixture.

Brown asked Norwich Public Utilities to install two separate water lines, one for plant cleaning and staff bathrooms and a segregated line for product water. Brown designed a filter system to remove chlorine prior to sending it through pipes to processing stations.

A giant blender combines the right amounts of water, juice concentrate, sugar or other ingredients according to a specific recipe and then sends the product into one of the three huge holding tanks. From there, the juice is pumped through a pasteurizer that heats it to 170 degrees and then flash-cools it and sends it to the two bottling stations in the next room.

The bottling line moved here from Preston is operating, while a second unit Brown purchased is not yet hooked up. He currently has seven employees running the one bottling line and could expand as more work arrives.

The newly filled bottles go next to the labelers and workers packing them into boxes in the adjacent room. The bottling lines are in “the clean room,” Brown said. Anyone in that room must wear hats or hair nets. Heavy plastic curtains divide it from adjacent rooms, especially the boxing operation with wooden pallets and cardboard boxes.

“Corrugated is the dirtiest thing you can bring into your plant,” Brown said.

Next is a garage-sized room Brown converted into a giant cooler that keeps finished product at 36 to 38 degrees until it is trucked out – usually within a day or two. Brown will bring his smaller Preston coolers to Norwich too.

The Connecticut Currant plant in Preston won't go dark. Brown is a partner in Maple Lane Spirits LLC, maker of Foggy Harbor brand vodka, gin and a black currant liqueur called cassis. The Preston plant will be Foggy Harbor's home, eventually housing its own distillery. The company now rents distillery capacity elsewhere.

Brown praised all city and state agencies involved in the tedious process of ensuring environmental cleanup was completed and assisting him in obtaining permits for the renovations.

NPU will provide up to a 35 percent rebate for installing energy efficient lighting and equipment. Norwich Assessor Donna Ralston is certifying that the plant qualifies under a state law for a seven-year phase-in of property taxes on the value of the improvements. Norwich Beverage would pay full taxes on the pre-existing property.

“This is a terrific business for the business park,” Mayor Deberey Hinchey said. “And I am so happy that he chose that spot to do his expansion. He’s a terrific businessman.”

c.bessette@theday.com

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