Broad bean-to-bar chocolate processing portfolio

Swiss company Bühler displayed its latest developments, products, and technology solutions over a 1,200 m² area at interpack. The company featured eight market segments: cocoa, chocolate mass, chocolate moulding, nuts, coffee, grain milling, breakfast cereals and sorting. In addition one area of special interest was Bühler’s global service.

New highlights in chocolate mass and compound production include the SmartChoc™ and MicroFactory™ systems, which demonstrate how companies with small production volumes can benefit from Bühler’s vast know-how in chocolate processing. The DoMiReCo™ – Dosing, Mixing, Refining and Conching – process is the state-of-the-art process in the industry for making high-quality chocolate. About 70 % of all the chocolate made worldwide is produced by this process. With its new MicroFactory™ system, Bühler is now making this process available also to processors of smaller volumes and batches. The MicroFactory™ system is equipped with a high-shear mixer ogether with two inline three-roll refiners for pre-grinding and fine-grinding the chocolate.

Traditional Frisse-Conches™ finalize this small-scale process for producing highquality chocolate. The MicroFactory™ processes batch sizes of 200 – 400 kg with a resulting output of 500 – 1500 kg per day.

The SmartChoc™ is a combination of a powerful bead mill with a mixer or a mixing conche and allows a variety of product applications. With one or two mixers, the system is the ideal choice for processing compounds in making a wide range of end products such as fat-based masses for coatings or filling and compound chocolate. By combining a mixing conche with a PLC control unit, the equipment becomes a chocolate system with a throughput ranging from from 50 to 300 kg per hour. Thanks to flavor treatment during the light conching process, the mass produced develops the typical chocolate taste.

As for cocoa, Bühler introduced its latest development in cocoa roasting, the Barth-Tornado RSX. A new technology enables higher productivity, efficiency, and flexibility in the roasting process. With the PreGrind™ beater blade mill and FineGrind™ bead mill, Bühler underscored its competence in cocoa grinding. Last but not least, the WinCos® control system opens up new dimensions in cocoa plant control.

Bühler has set the standards in chocolate processing with its DoMiReCo™ process and displayed solutions all along this process chain. Starting with the stainless steel ShearMix™ Bühler demonstrates the latest standards in hygienic design. This new standard of hygienic design can also be seen at the new five-roll refiner Finer™ V which is also available in stainless steel. Furthermore, the new Finer™ V is equipped with a new cooling system and drive concept for reducing energy consumption.

A new drive concept for reducing energy consumption was also shown for the new Frisse-ELK™ single shaft conche. Also for the Frisse-DUC™ triple shaft (or double overthrow) conche, Bühler introduced new conching tools which reduce conching time and enable a wider range of conching profiles.

In chocolate moulding, Bühler showed a new solution of its “Compact” series, the ChocoMaster™ Compact: The chain conveyor moulding line is for mid-range capacities (500-2,500 kg/h) of solid- and one-shot filled articles. In addition to the compact moulding line, Bühler will also show a PowerShot™ depositor and a CoolCore™ cold stamping unit, suitable for a production speed of up to 32 moulds per minute.

For nuts, Bühler presented integrated solutions for processing different kinds of tree and ground nuts. The portfolio comprises solutions for nut cleaning, sorting, roasting, pasteurization, chopping and grinding from a single source. In the area of breakfast cereal processing, Bühler offers solutions from raw material handling to the finished product. In the world of coffee, Bühler presented a new process innovation for the roasting industry.