STiR coffee and tea magazine

12 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 4, 2017 (August / September) ENCOTECC Inc. USA +1 239 443 5074 Canada +1 514 800 2473 Europe +49 211 7311 5151 info@encotecc.com EQUIPMENT NEWS Roaster Gearing Up for Capsule Expansion A major Italian coffee roaster has contracted Spreafico and Sepack to develop three new coffee capsule production lines. The two Italian firms are responsible for the design, engineering and installation of Spreafico's capsule-filling technology at the roasting facility. The development will add lines designed to process and package different types of capsules including "A modo mio" (my way), Blu, Nespresso, and Dolce Gusto (sweet taste). Spreafico is responsible for the engineering and delivery of the filling machines, the spokesman said. Sepack will coordinate the construction. When completed, the new operations will allow the roaster to fulfill all tasks from processing to secondary packaging with capsule formats for coffee, blends and soluble products. "Each of the three lines is dedicated to the production of a single capsule format, but the flexibility of the lines allows them to potentially be used to produce a wide range of capsule with different packaging according to different (customers)," the spokesman said. "Spreafico's filling machines are the hearts of the three productive lines." One lines will produce barrier-coated capsules for the national market, supermarket chains and vending machines. The second will specialize in Nespresso-style capsules and the third will produce Dolce Gusto-type units. The overall project started after the roaster decided to strengthen its commercial efforts to meet the demand for the variety of capsules on the market. Sepack was selected based on its experience designing complete plants and its working relationships with companies such as Spreafico. Sepack, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, is a commercial marketing business that works with automatic machine manufacturers to create turnkey solutions for filling and packaging pharmaceutical and food products. Spreafico, based in Lecco, Italy, specializes in the design and installa- tion of capsule packaging solutions for coffee and other soluble products. Learn more: www-spreafico-srl.com Flavourtech for Cold Brew Flavourtech has developed a simple, flexible solution for producers of cold brew coffee to in- crease production capacity with less floor space. The process also makes more efficient use of the available soluble solids in the coffee beans. The Flavourtech rotating disc column (RDC) is a precise mixing column where users can accurately control the residence time and temperature. "Using Flavourtech developed grinding techniques each coffee particle is cut to the same size and automatically mixed with the required amount of water," accordinug to Leon Skaliotis, sales and marketing director at Flavourtech in Griffith, Australia "The coffee and water slurry then enter the Spinning cone column Spreafico SRC 6 capsule machine bottom and are pushed up through the column for a period of time controlled by the operator. Each portion of slurry then exits the RDC having undergone the same amount of mixing and residence time. This ensures an identical brewing time and an extremely consistent product," he explains. Cold brewers preferred the taste of the RDC product over their own and were surprised to find out that the residence time was only 20 minutes and not the 12-14 hours that they normally used, said Skaliotis. Although the process was conducted at room tem- perature, the yield of soluble solids was up to 40% more, meaning they could produce up to 40% more product from the same volume of coffee beans. "They saw this as a real advantage in being able to reduce their cost of production and final product price," he said. "The speed and small footprint of the system also had flow-on effects in that they would not need to move to larger facilities or employ further staff as they expanded their business," he said. The advantage of the spinning cone column (SCC) for producers is that they can now manufacture not only cold brew coffee but also RTD products from the same beans, maximizing the recovery of soluble solids from the coffee for their artisanal products. The technology extracts more than 50% of the available soluble solids in the coffee bean compared to the 20% currently obtained by most cold brew producers. Not only will this reduce production costs but a more consistent artisanal cold brew product is possible with the ability to also extend the product line with a high quality RTD coffee, he said. Alternatively, the SCC can be used to produce an extract easily and continuously solely for use in RTD coffee prod- ucts. Integrated extraction system (IES) is a combination of Flavourtech's core technologies (including RDC and SCC) in a continuous, automated processing line, he said. Learn more: www.flavourtech.com

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