Automation in the food sector, a strong mix of ingredients

Puratos is a Belgian family-owned company specialising in providing ingredients and services for the patisserie, bakery and chocolate industries. In their more than 100 years of existence, they grew into a multinational company with branches in more than 80 countries and more than 10,000 employees. Investing in R&D is part of their DNA for them and ensures they remain a major player in the market, which is why they have a team of more than 1,000 researchers and technical advisors on board worldwide.

In their Puradome FoodTech Centre, together with Flanders Make, they developed a system that can both show digital work instructions on a display and perform quality control of patisserie pieces, thus partially replacing the physical presence of chef-pastry chefs. For example, a pastry chef develops a particular pastry and its preparation can be taught digitally to other pastry chefs. The system provides step-by-step instructions that visually show how a chef performed the preparation, then a vision system also goes on to check whether the steps were performed correctly. The order of steps and the correct placement of small details is important in this respect and is also evaluated and adjusted if necessary.

This demo is currently on display at their PuraDome FoodTech Centre in Groot-Bijgaarden, where they are demonstrating new and innovative techniques and technologies as part of their "Mission to Mars" programme. The unit will move to their training centre for training patisserie chefs at a later stage.

Belgian chocolate is a sought-after product worldwide and our machines to produce chocolate are also very popular. Prefamac builds machines for the chocolate sector and for industrial manufacturers of biscuits, wafers, biscuits and cake. Some 95% of those machines they then export worldwide. The demand for customisation is also increasing in the chocolate sector, for example to produce chocolates with more specific shapes or fillings in addition to the common pralines. These smaller series are usually made by Prefamac by hand, because it was not so easy to convert the machines for mass production.

Together, Prefamac and Flanders Make developed a modular machine that can be flexibly converted to produce different chocolates with one machine. Differences in chocolate layers and combinations with ground nuts can be smoothly accommodated by the machine, as well as more complex shapes than what was previously possible by machine. Finally, the machine includes a vision system to monitor production.

After a successful proof-of-concept, Prefamac is meanwhile further developing the machine with its customers in order to get this technology fully market-ready as well.