The Client
The client is a global manufacturer of branded confectionery products including chocolate coated wafers, biscuits, cakes, and sweet snacks with facilities in the UK, Europe and worldwide.
The project
Inline wafer maturation solution
Objective
To reduce manufacturing and processing time, reduce production costs, improve space optimisation, increase overall efficiency.
The Problem
Traditionally confectionery wafers would be oven baked which reduces the moisture content making them dry once cooled . When the chocolate coating is applied, the dry wafers absorb moisture from the chocolate which causes the chocolate to crack and discolour . To overcome this problem, traditional manufacturing methods required the wafers to be stacked in ‘books’ and stored within dedicated maturation rooms for up to two weeks to increase the moisture content. Because each wafer required air flow around the entire surface area of each individual wafer sheet, these stacked solutions required a large volume to “humidify” the wafers taking up a great deal of floor space in the factory and requiring significant energy to run the humidifiers and air handlers. This process also takes approximately 2 weeks to complete so at any one point in time 4% of saleable stock is tied up in these maturation chambers when they could be with customers.
The Solution
Working closely with the research department of this multinational confectionery company Newsome developed an air handling and humidification system for inline wafer maturation which fulfilled all the project objectives of time and cost reduction .
The Newsome solution consisted of integrating the cooling and maturation equipment and thus the humidification inline. Controlling air circulation, temperature, and humidity in this inline solution rather than in the maturation chambers reduced the need for additional product storage and double handling was eliminated thus saving significant amounts of time, money, and valuable floor space whilst delivering product consistency.
The outcome
The Newsome inline solution has resulted in reducing manufacturing costs, speeding up the production time and enabling better use of factory floor space to further streamline the baking, cooling and packaging process.
Why Newsome was chosen for this project.
For many years Newsome ltd have been at the forefront of providing temperature and moisture control solutions to food and drink processors and manufacturers throughout the UK and perfecting the technology used in inline wafer maturation conditioning. Over the years our inline maturation systems have been successfully installed and commissioned worldwide in cities and countries including Chicago, Bulgaria, UK, Poland, and Italy.