‘In-house’ Show Opens Doors, Eyes

They came from as far away as Brazil and as close by as Neu-Isenberg, Germany. The group included customers representing multinational companies such as Mars, Cadbury and Lorenz Bahlsen as well as regionals such as Chocolate Frey AG, Dzukija Ltd. and Al Fardos.

For this group, however, Hosokowa Confectionery & Bakery Technology Systems’ “In-House Show,” in Leingarten, Germany, held on June 23-24, wasn’t merely a destination point. Rather, the visit provided both customers and partners an opportunity to see first hand the synergies behind the company’s three distinct brands and their production capabilities.

Ter Braak, Bepex-Hutt and Kreuter, all of which were founded in the late 1940s, represent three key elements in confectionery and bakery production systems. Housed under the Hosokowa Bepex GmbH management umbrella, the three brands effectively provide “one-stop shopping” for producers of a broad range of confectionery and bakery products.

Hosokowa Bepex's In-House Show tour included visits to the test center, which included live demonstrations of the company's equipment range, including a fully operational bar line.

The Ter Braak component provides the essential equipment for mass preparation, cooking and aerating, while Bepex-Hutt delivers the broadest variety of processing equipment for forming, extruding, cutting, depositing and moulding. Kreuter completes the triumvirate with its range of finishing equipment for enrobing, tempering and cooling.

To ensure that the 50-plus attendees at the In-House Show understood the framework within which parent company Hosokowa Bepex GmbH operates, Managing Director Rainer Kraus, along with co-managing directors, Wolfgang Pforsich and Herm.-OttoVongeheur, first provided a brief overview about the company.

As explained to those in attendance, the Hosokawa Micron Group, which owns Hosokowa Bepex, was established in 1916. It has production facilities in five countries and operates 12 R&D testing centers worldwide. Sales totaled $467 million in 2008 and the group employs 1,500 people.

In addition to its confectionery and bakery technology interests, which account for 8% of its global sales, the Hosokawa Micron Group operates divisions focused on powder and particle processing and blown film processing.

Following the corporate overview, visitors were taken to Bepex-Hutt’s test center, where members of the company’s research and development team demonstrated the capabilities of both the lab and equipment available. After a break for lunch, the demonstrations continued, including a visit to an actual production line for multilayered bars.

Recognizing that “controlled” environments, such as in a pilot plant and/or research and development center don’t always reflect the realities of the workplace, attendees then were bused to a hotel near Miltach so that they could visit the Otto Beier Waffelfabrik GmbH plant the following day.

The two-hour plant visit of the Otto Beier Waffelfabrik facility reaffirmed Hosokowa Bepex’s philosophy of using “time-tested technologies” to ensure quality and efficiency. The manufacturer of wafers and related products featured a complete SMART automatic bar line, including a cooking system for a fruit binder and caramel, a Contimix for muesli production, formers for caramel and general products, a pre-cooling tunnel, a slitter, fanning belt, a guillotine cutter, an enrober and cooling tunnel as well as tempering units for the cooker and former.

Again, as the culminating event of the company’s In-House Show, the journey to the Otto Beier plant underscored Hosokawa Bepex’s claim as a one-stop shop. It also reinforced the company philosophy of partnering with its customers to reach mutual goals.