Caramel filter reduces waste by 20%

Confectioner Mondelēz International has reduced product wastage within its Cha-Cha brand process line at its Herentals-based factory in Belgium by 20% through the installation of a self-cleaning Russell Eco Filter.

The Cha-Cha chocolate bar has been around for 50 years and is a thin crunchy wafer covered with caramel and Belgian chocolate.

The Russell Finex filter improves production by recovering caramel, a high viscosity product which has to be filtered at a high temperature.

Before installation of the filter, the company had experienced significant product wastage during the manufacture of its Cha-Cha bar, and wanted to improve production efficiencies. It already uses seven Russell compact sieves for check screening of flour.

Production begins with baking a thin crispy wafer and coating it with caramel. The wafer is then laid to rest for 24 hours. Several wafers are then pressed together, cut to size and covered with chocolate. When the wafer is covered with caramel, wafer crumbs get into the excess caramel, making it non re-usable. Hence, caramel is wasted at this point of the production process.

“We sought a solution to recover the wasted caramel in order to reduce the product loss and improve the production process,” says Alex Pardon, continuous improvement facilitator at Mondelz.

Contact: Russell Finex