The bulk chocolate production machine procured by the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (Campco) will be commissioned by month-end.
The fully automated machine imported from Italy at a cost of Rs. 21crore has an annual production capacity of 3,600 tonnes. It has been trialled recently at the Campco’s chocolate factory in Puttur, managing director M. Suresh Bhandary told The Hindu .
The factory already has a chocolate-making machine with a similar production capacity. But the machine, set up in 1985, is operated manually.
The new machine can produce large chocolate blocks tailored to the requirements of chocolate manufacturers. These blocks are converted into different varieties of chocolates and other by-products, he said.
Boon to farmers
When the new machine is commissioned it would direclty help cocoa growers by increasing the demand for cocoa beans, he said.
The bean-crushing machine, which has an output of 4,200 tonnes a year, is at present running at 50 per cent as the existing chocolate-making machine required only 2,600 tonnes powder a year. This also means that the factory has been cutting on its bean procurement much to the annoyance of farmers.
He said that factory produced 3,600 tonnes of industrial chocolates annually and with the commissioning of the second machine the output would go up to 7,200 tonnes a year.
