The need for greater flexibility in handling multiple products along with quicker changeovers to meet consumer demand is leading to an increase in demand for automated equipment that takes workers out of the equation.
Tetra Pak said its Hoyer Rollo IM machine can handle up to 20 lanes of 56 mm wide stick products in automatically and in continuous production.
The Hoyer Rollo IM has been developed specifically to meet the growing market for flexible and reliable equipment that can handle a wide range of new, commercially attractive product ideas, Tetra Pak stated.
"The easy to set-up, slim in-line design of the Hoyer Rollo IM allows for a production room layout with additional equipment such as filling and back suction stations, and multiple lines with easy access for manual add-ins," the company statted.
The equipment targets the high capacity production of multi-layer products made from water, ice or ice cream mix combinations.
Between extraction and lay-off, the stick novelties also may be coated with chocolate.
The chocolate-dipped products may be coated with dry ingredients, the company said.
The Hoyer Rollo IM has a "guaranteed" high total-line yield of 97.5 per cent product, the company claimed.
The machine is available in two models.
One can produce up to 15,000 sticks per hour.
The other clocks in as speeds of up to 30,000 sticks per hour, the company claimed.
"Actual capacity will depend on factors such as the number of lanes, product volume and recipe, as well as the capacity of the wrapping and packing line," the company stated.
Quick change overs can be made in response to the changing market demands for such products.
It can be programmed with pre-set product recipes, allowing workers to make quick change-over and start-up times.
All in-line functions, including drive and the filling equipment, are controlled from one central control panel.
The stainless steel programmable logic controller cabinet is mounted on the side of the brine tank.
It has a touch screen for recipe set-up and information.
Tetra Pak has designed the fully welded, stainless steel brine tank for products that need extended freezing time, such as thick water ice sticks.
The brine distribution system is equipped with nozzle plates that provide even freezing and even shell thickness on split ice, at maximized freezing capacity, the company claimed.
Re-circulated warm water is used for defrost at extraction, to minimise the risk of contaminating the product with brine and to eliminate mould corrosion.
The warm brine does not come in contact with the stainless steel moulds.
The machine automatically cleans the moulds with water during every cycle, leaving no flavour mix residue - a feature designed to deal with multi-layer products, Tetra Pak claimed.
The main production stages involve filling ice cream into the moulds, inserting the wooden sticks into the ice cream, freezing the bars in a cold brine bath at -40ºC, defrosting a thin outer layer of the bars with warm water spray at up to 25ºC, extracting the frozen bars from the moulds, and finally packing the product.
The machine can be used in conjunction with the company's Hoyer Flowrap MW F2 wrapping machine.