ProSweets Cologne, the leading supplier fair for confectionery and snacks, will showcase the advantages of networked automation, among other things, from 30 January to 2 February 2022. It helps manufacturers to produce more efficiently and flexibly despite shrinking batch sizes.

Hardly any other industry introduces as many innovations onto the market as the sweets and snacks industries. The manufacturers try to arouse buying interest with new recipes, new ingredients and exotic flavours. At ProSweets Cologne, visitors can experience live how flexible the machines have to be to enable this creative diversity on the shelves. The exhibitors at the Cologne fair grounds are thereby focusing on intelligent automation technologies which unite the high competitive pressure and changing market trends economically.

With a view to ProSweets Cologne 2022, it becomes apparent that automation and digitalization continue to be important driving forces on the way to the efficient and sustainable production. The exhibitors are accommodating the demand of the industry to introduce new sweets and snacks onto the market in increasingly shorter intervals with machinery that enables fast format changeovers and ensures high performance in confined spaces thanks to cutting-edge technology. As such, they increase productivity and flexibility for ever smaller batch sizes – a trend that is ongoing.

The machines of the latest generation are networked and follow a plug-and-produce approach which offers the fast adaption to an almost unlimited diversity of chocolate products, toffees and jellies. This allows the manufacturers to satisfy the consumers’ wish for individual and seasonal sweets while at the same time fulfilling the increased demands for changing packaging formats.

The ConfecPro system from Winkler & Dünnebier Süßwarenmaschinen, Rengsdorf/Germany, illustrates the high-performance of the modular concept of modern depositing machines. The highly-flexible production line was built for the moulding of filled and solid chocolates and bars. It can be used to carry out different tasks and can be set up as a one- or two-lane machine on one level or across several levels. Its decentralized control concept enables further stations to be added simply, especially if free space is planned from the onset. It is possible to adapt or expand the machine at any time based on the changing demands of the producers.

The modular systems shown at ProSweets Cologne range through to image processing, which can be modularly integrated into every machine as a quality control tool. Based on the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), Bi-Ber Bilderkennungs-systeme company from Berlin shows how deep-learning algorithms enable such inspection tasks to be automated that are too complex for classic image processing. The company has implemented a solution for chocolate and waffle products which carries out the inspection inside the moulds. Depending on the product, the moulds contain up to 108 alveoli which the testing system has to segment and evaluate to make sure that no plastic or metal pieces are found in the products. Optical defects such as uneven coatings are also detected.

Already a standard for hard sweets for some time, since recently the powderless moulding of fruit gums and jellies is also possible. Contrary to the traditional starch moulding method in mogul plants, neither trays nor stamps are used, but instead reusable silicon or polycarbonate moulds. The advantage: gelatin products no longer need a ripening room and only take 20 to 40 min to cool down and set. After a visual check, the empty moulds are conveyed back to the depositing station via an automatic changeover station and are refilled. Doing away with powder not only leads to cost advantages, but also to energy conservation. It also allows the development of innovative sweets which weren’t possible before. The method is particularly interesting for mass-produced items.

In addition to an accurate dosage technology, manufacturers who want to add health-promoting substances such as vitamins, trace elements or Omega-3 fatty acids to OTC sweets, require a machine that complies with the GMP (good manufacturing practices) demands of the production of pharmaceuticals. This faces the machine builder with numerous technical challenges that have to be overcome, since casting machines for fruit gums and jellies tend to soil rapidly.

The exhibitors of ProSweets Cologne are thus purposefully setting new benchmarks in hygienic design. Whereas, in the recent past, often varnished components were implemented, in the meantime, corrosion-free materials enable immaculate and hygienic production throughout the entire line. The machine builders are combatting poor cleaning options with extractable casting stations and chainless design, which additionally reduces the maintenance efforts.

A growing diversity of products on the one hand, rising price pressure on the other – to be successful on the market, both flexible and highly economic production processes are required. At ProSweets Cologne, visitors learn what is already possible today using networked automation, and which advantages this offers to sweets and snacks manufacturers. The key topics, digitalization and hygienic design, are also reflected in the extensive lecture programme and in the special events of the international supplier fair, which is being held once again together with ISM trade show.