Chocolate manufacturing machines

[Maxrom]

I've often wondered how people like Cadbury develop new products, and who exactly builds the new machines to manufacture them. I'm assuming it must be an expensive thing to do, I mean, they can't go down to the local chocolate machinery store, and buy a new Cadbury Boost making machine. So, my question is, how do they go about introducing new chocolate bars, how much does it cost, who builds their machines to make the chocolate, and are the machines dedicated to each individual chocolate bar they produce. Odd question I know, but there you go - always something I've wanted to know!

[thewillow]

What an odd question! I can give one small piece of information. A friend who worked with Cadbury's in Dublin told me years and years ago (maybe twenty years ago) that the Twirl was thought up at their plant there because there was a lot of 'downtime' on the Flake machine and some other machine and a member of staff suggested the idea of the Twirl. No more details I'm afraid. It stuck in my head for some reason. How much would a Curly Wurly machine cost? The mind boggles.

[LeMarchand]

Don't tell anyone, but Willy Wonka comes up with the ideas and the Oompa Loompas make the machines.

[BenDToy]

Based on my experience working for a similar company. They will have an R&D department who will come up with the ideas for a product, which is made up in a laboratory mostly done by hand. If the product goes to the next stage, that would sometimes be on a "pilot" scale, using small production machines, some of which would be standard equipment like mixing machines, ovens, dispensers, wrappers etc.which are readily available from specialised suppliers. Some stuff may still be done by hand. Any special equipment would be designed by the engineering people, and built by specialist manufacturers. The product would be test marketed in a selected area, and the results analysed to see whether it is worth launching. Then in large scale production the line would be automated as much as possible, and machines combined to minimise costs. This needs to be balanced with flexibility to enable the line to be used for other products, as thewillow makes reference to. As an example, chocolate is probably made in a single place, and then batches are "customised" with flavours, colours, textures and then transferred to the appropriate line to be applied to the specific product. There may be a selection of lines, making groups of products, and perhaps one or two specialised machines to do specific tasks eg forming Curly Wurly or Flake bars. General tasks like cooking, wrapping and packing may be done by standard machines, arranged to suit the product group. Some of this is based on my experience and some on guesswork so not 100% certain. Any other specifics just post and I will find out. Hope this helps.

[Maudlettice]

If you wish to read about the machinery go to http:www.datasweet.de/supply/machine/machine-eng.htm