Equipment
designing and manufacturing mixers for chewing gum is vast. We recognise that protecting and maintaining the integrity of a high volume, often global, brands requires quality and reliability throughout all parts of the process, and mixing is at the heart of that process.
Chewing gum panning
Chewing gum dragees are produced by the application of successive layers of coating to suitably shaped gum centres as they tumble in a revolving pan. Some favour automatic coating pans over manual ones as they can help improve labour cost, utilities consumption, working space, rework and scrap, hygiene (GMP), flexibility, and the quality/consistency of finished products. Batch sizes are also a major difference, as the largest manual pans have a capacity of 500Kg compared with automatic coating pans that cover a range from 250 to 3000Kg of coated gums.
Automatic pans have a cylindrical drum with rounded sides. The drum has three key parameters: length, diameter and products bed depth. Bed depth is of paramount importance for handling of fragile products, as gums in the bottom of the drum will bear the weight of the ones above. Dumoulin says its drums are designed to achieve a low bed depth: ‘a must for today’s best sellers such as liquid filled chewing gums’. The drum is fully perforated in bid to achieve quick and homogeneous mixing and maximum exposure to the ventilation and the spraying. This, says Dumoulin, enables ‘perfect coatings in a minimum of time’. The air flow passed through
With more than 40 years experience in drying rooms for jelly products, Italian manufacturer P.C. di Pompeo Catelli S.r.l. has introduced a new curing room for chewing gum before packaging.
According to the company, high efficiency of the room is guaranteed by the use of high quality materials. Catelli describes it as ‘the perfect insulation of the whole curing room, an improved airflow and full control over temperature and humidity’. An on board PLC has been incorporated in a bid to allow full customisation of all process steps, according to product characteristics and the desired results. As a result, products collected in trays are cured and delivered
in the right condition to enter the packaging area straight away, thus shortening the overall process times. To try and keep running costs at an even lower level and reduce investment payback time, the curing room features an energy recovery system, Catelli adds that this enables a more eco-friendly production by reducing energy waste. Higher levels of automation are also said to be achieved by combining the P.C. Pompeo Catelli robotised weighing system and / or the AGV system to transfer pallets around the production area. This, says the firm, reduces the impact of labour costs and allows the ‘highest performances around the clock’.
tiny holes drilled into the drum, and can be in one of two directions—from the bottom up, which tends to fluidise the product, or from the top down.
Perforated pan ventilation principle
Many coatings are used for chewing gums. It all started with sugar coating (dextrose, fructose) but sugarfree is now becoming more popular - the most common ones being Maltitol, Xylitol, Isomalt and Sorbitol. Gum centres are sensitive to humidity and temperature; therefore custom designed process parameters are required. Syrup temperature should be high enough to avoid crystallisation in pipes and nozzles which are double jacketed.
Different syrup concentrations may be used - heavy syrup will give a fast build up whereas light syrup will give slow crystallisation, fine crystals and a smooth surface. This will also deliver a different ‘crunchy’ effect. Various systems may be used for flavour or colour injection into the coating solution, depending on the desired effect for the chewing gums. Ventilation is controlled throughout the complete process in a bid to achieve the best balance between process time and quality. Dry materials may be added by using specific spraying systems, for faster drying time, faster build up, different mouth sensations, or as part of the crystallisation process for some polyols. Micronised wax is used for shiny appearance of the finished gums.
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