pharmacists Hans Trojel and Victor Hans Meyer laid the foundation for what would eventually become the largest Danish confectionery manufacturer. Its production is in full swing: chocolate and confectionery production yields 40,000 tonnes annually. Toms excels not only thanks to the variety of
its long history, the company has made a name for itself with eye-catching packaging that has consistently delighted consumers with new designs. Streamlined outer packaging for chocolate, including the nationally recognised ‘Skildpadde’ (Danish for turtle), put an end to the old-fashioned,
material-
heavy versions – with a touch of humour. The clear design language that made such an impression in stores was due in no small part to Victor B. Strand. This visionary marketing expert took over Toms in 1942 and his innovations ushered in a new era for the confectionery maker.
A diverse assortment to tickle the tastebuds innovative spirit of the time. The ‘Anthon Berg’ praline assortment, for example, delights both the palate and the eye. The pralines are presented in trays that hold 24 of the delicious chocolate treats, showcasing them beautifully for the consumer. Toms works with 14 different tray sizes, which employees at the Polish production site place by hand into the transport chain. They take the chocolates from racks and place them on product feed conveyors. Employees also manually load the subsequent sales boxes with the assorted variations with the 24 chocolates. The use of so many trays and at times narrow cavities calls for the utmost precision. If a tray is incorrectly positioned, a praline may end
A box of ‘Anthon Berg’ pralines leaves nothing to be desired.
Facts & figures
Toms produces around 40 tonnes of chocolate and confectionery a year, including liquorice, wine gum and chewing gum.
Thanks to Schubert, Toms processes 44 trays per minute.
14 tray sizes and 24 products add up to 18 different tray variations at Toms.
up on a ledge instead of inside the cavity. This can damage the chocolates and lead to waste – which is unfortunate for the entire production process, where Toms strives for consistently high throughput. It came as no surprise that Toms was looking for a reliable tray loading solution that would work with absolute precision, even with packaging line was equally important. Because the company works with 14 tray sizes, the picker robots’ tools had to be capable of being changed without incurring any time delays.
Image processing times two “For pick-and-place technology, it made Dominik Jakubiak, project engineer at Toms. “Especially as we had already successfully
completed a similar project with Schubert. We represented another company on the Polish managers at Toms was a praline packaging line that would enable the orientation control of the trays at the infeed and check the packaging for completeness at the outfeed. Schubert made a name for itself 50 years ago with packaging lines for pralines. “The German company is considered the inventor of praline Adam Cichuta, project engineer as well. The Crailsheim-based company quickly came up with a solution. The machine manufacturer offers a range of state-of-the-art scanners for packaging lines, from 2D incident light scanners for colour and surface inspection to 3D scanners for the precise detection of height, shape and colour. A 2D scanner proved to be the right choice for Toms. It reliably detects the colour and shape of the various chocolates, thereby checking their quality. Defective chocolate creations are not picked up by the pick & place robots and never reach the trade. scanners, the packaging line places up to 529 chocolates per minute into trays that are fed in manually. The robots only load correctly positioned trays to prevent damaged incorrectly oriented trays are immediately sorted out. Rejected trays pass a light barrier and this triggers a corresponding signal to the operating personnel, who remove the trays from the process. Trays are under close scrutiny at Toms, with each tray being checked by a separate camera for correct positioning at the infeed and later for completeness at the outfeed. If chocolates are missing or defective, the cutting-edge packaging line gently ejects the affected trays. To accomplish this, the conveyor belt tilts belt. There, the operating personnel can them as needed. The trays and their sweet contents then return to the process.
KennedysConfection.com Kennedy’s Confection April 2025 27
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