HARD AND SOFT CANDY
Sandra Link, Product Manager at Makat Candy Technology. At the core of Makat’s starchless kitchen is an energy-
effi cient dissolving and vacuuming unit. The system exhibited at Interpack is said to be able to achieve a dry substance content of up to 86%. It dissolves the slurry ensuring a fi rst- in-fi rst-out principle that protects the product and keeps dwell times short. Sensitive active ingredients can be added at the last stage to the jelly mass to help reduce thermal stress and degradation of these often-delicate ingredients. Equipped with fl owmeters the volumetric dosing and mixing unit is able to continuously add preset amounts of colour, fl avour, acid, and active ingredients to achieve a homogenous, bubble-free jelly mass with high recipe accuracy. After dosing and mixing, the Makat depositor is employed
to ensure high-quality depositing, even of highly viscous jelly masses. Following depositing into reusable polycarbonate moulds, the moulds are placed in a closed-loop integrated cooling unit to cool down. This eliminates the need for any additional manual handling processes. Instead, the contactless demoulding unit ensures hygienic and gentle demoulding of products.
Making it functional
Baker Perkins tells us that it is seeing growth in the application of hard candy confectionery for functional purposes. Although most activity in the functional/nutraceutical sector has been in the jelly and gummy sectors, some medicated products are better suited to the slow-release delivery characteristics provided by hard candy, including those containing antiseptics, menthol and eucalyptus oil to alleviate
18 Kennedy’s Confection July 2023
the symptoms of minor ailments such as coughs, colds, sore throats and nasal congestion. A Baker Perkins spokesperson explained that starch-free
cooking and depositing systems can offer a good solution for those looking to create functional products. The traditional starch mogul process, commonly used for producing jellies and gummies, may not be the best solution for manufacturing nutraceutical products because, typically they contain active ingredients designed to provide specifi c health benefi ts – such as vitamins, minerals, herbal extracts, or other bioactive compounds. Nutraceutical ingredients can be sensitive to high temperatures and the active ingredient may be degraded, reducing effi cacy of the fi nished product. The traditional starch mogul process also involves several
processing stages including cooking, cooling, moulding, and drying and these prolonged processing times can negatively impact the stability and potency of nutraceutical ingredients. Starch-free cooking and depositing is a simpler process
that employs solid moulds, a non-contact ejection system, a fully automatic wash-through function and no need for recycling of starch. The starch-free process does not degrade active ingredients
– and it is said to offer greater accuracies through the mixing, cooking and depositing processes. Any product that claims a functional benefi t must have the active ingredients present in the exact quantities claimed, which requires accurate dosing. Starch-free processing can also offer a good solution for
confectionery producers looking for a greater variety of short production runs. While outputs from a typical Baker Perkins hard candy line can range from 500 to 2,000kg/hr, the growth of the functional
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