Teralba industries have recently supplied some Thermpro chocolate melting systems for serious chocolate lovers. How serious? 1 tonne at a time serious. Have a look at the sheer scale of these machines! Made entirely of Stainless Steel, these Thermpro systems melt a 1 tonne block of chocolate in less than half an hour.
Our chocolate loving customer Unilever purchased three of these Thermpro systems from Teralba Industries this past month.
Unilever approached Teralba with a need; a solution was required for an efficient means to melt the most precious substance known to mankind. Yes my friends, chocolate. And a lot of it.
The previous method of chocolate melting was the reason that the need became apparent. The process involved 20kg individually plastic wrapped blocks of chocolate that needed to be unwrapped by hand before being dropped into a bath of molten chocolate to gradually melt. As you can imagine, this took time and manpower to complete. Imagine the disaster that would occur if any of the plastic wrap from the chocolate made its way into the melter!
Teralba designed and manufactured a special chocolate melter that is 3 Metres long, 4.5 Metres high and 2.2m deep and able to melt 2 x 1 tonne blocks of chocolate in a single, 20 minute sitting.
1 tonne of chocolate is about 900mm x 900mm x 900mm. That is the equivalent of 360 normal blocks of chocolate stacked 4 across, 10 down and 9 high, so imagine the savings the new Thermpro machines generate with this efficient and speedy process.
There are a lot of benefits that come with these Thermpro melters. For one, they deliver a scrumptious pool of liquid chocolate. But other than the most obvious benefit, using the Thermpro melters reduces manual handling making it much more hygienic. Rather than being loaded in by hand, the blocks are loaded into the melters via a lifting attachment with special stainless steel arms. The melters are also fully enclosed so that there is no risk of contamination.
Teralba Thermpro melting systems include specific new and ingenious design elements:
- A front loading machine with a door that opens for maximum accessibility to load via a forklift
- A door that creates a complete seal, and can open and close safely – with no risk of falling or slamming, reducing the risk of injury to zero. This is brought about by a seesaw principle – the weight of the door is precisely countered with weights of the same heft.
- Automated safety interlocks on everything – when the door opens, all functions stop.
- A big window on the door, allowing the operator to see inside the melter at all times
- A patented hot chocolate loading platform that ensures that all chocolate melts evenly and remains tempered.
The Thermpro melters also make the process more eco-friendly! Because the initial blocks of chocolate are bigger, there are less blocks used – and therefore less plastic used to wrap them. Another eco-perk is that there is less energy used in the melting process. This is a result of less hot water being used. The original process used 60,000 Litres/hr of recirculating hot water while the Thermpro melters produce a better chocolate with 1/3 the hot water use.
Have questions about the Thermpro? Contact one of our friendly staff members now!
