How does candy gets its own taste, texture and appearance?

There is a huge vatiation in candy available on the market, each brand with its own taste, texture and appearance. These features are often part of the branding of the major confectionery manufacturers and therefore important that is done properly.

One of the machine builders who is specialised in equipment for the food industry, escpecially in aerating, depositing, forming and mixing of fat creams, chocolate and other masses, is Haas-Mondomix. I had the opportunity to visit them in Almere (NL) and work with them on a solution, containing ultrasonic volume flow meters, for adding additives into the main stream of the production process of candy.

Important topics when dosing additives

The equipment Haas-Mondomix designs for the confectionery industry has to meet strict requirements. Important topics here are:

High-quality confectionery products; As confectionery products, such as candy, represent a specific brand it is important that the colour, texture and taste are always the same. So reproducibility in this process is essential. Good reproducibility will result in high-quality confectionery products.
Efficient use of raw materials (colourings, acid and flavourings); Coulouring and flavourings are very costly agents, especially the natural variant. Therefore, a controlled and efficient use of these substances is very much desired. You will save on raw materials and it will also add to a better quality as well.
Sanitary design, suitable for food applications; for devices in food applications it is important that they have hygienic design meaning a surface roughness ≤ 0.8 µm and no dead volume.

Application at Haas Mondomix

Solution for dosing additives with an ultrasonic volume flow meter

In the old days, if something went wrong in the candy manufacturing process, poor quality was observed by looking at the candy at a rather late stage, resulting in entire batches of candy that had to be defined as 'second choice'.

In close cooperation with Haas-Mondomix and our Bronkhorst Nederland office, we succeeded in finding a solution which can help Haas-Mondomix to manufacture even more efficient equipment.

During a test we used multiple ultrasonic volume flow meters (Bronkhorst’s new ES-FLOW series) to measure the amount of additieves - flavourings, colourings and acids - that were added to the main stream of the production process.

As these fluids are highly concentrated, only small amounts have to be added. These small amounts can be measured with the ultrasonic flow meter, as the measurement range is within 4 to 1500 ml/min with a precision of +/- 1% Rd.

ES-FLOW, ultrasonic volume flow meter

Depending on the type of candy to be produced, the amounts and types of colourings, flavourings and acids will vary. For one type of candy - a red wine gum, for example - these amounts have to be constant for the entire batch. However, the setup with the ultrasonic volume flow meter is sufficiently flexible to be used for another type of candy - take a green wine gum - after rinsing in between.

In the current process, the ultrasonic flow meter is used for measuring, and sends the measurement values to the PLC. Currently, this procedure is standardised within Haas Mondomix, so that Bronkhorst’s ES-FLOW devices are incorporated as standard option in Haas Mondomix equipment for confectionery manufacturing.

How does this ultrasonic volume flow meter work?

Bronkhorst’s ES-FLOW ultrasonic volume flow meters uses Ultrasonic Wave Technology to measure the volume flow rates of liquids. This technology has been developed in close collaboration with TNO (Netherlands organization for applied scientific research).

Learn more about the measurement of additive supply in candy measurement.

Read more about our the ES-FLOW ultrasonic volume flow meter and it’s possibilities:

ES-FLOW product page

How does candy gets its own taste, texture and appearance?

Important topics when dosing additives

Solution for dosing additives with an ultrasonic volume flow meter

How does this ultrasonic volume flow meter work?

Would you like more information about ES-FLOW ultrasonic volume flow meters?