Caramel Piece Handling

A confectioner wanted to manufacture a new product that looked like a peanut butter cup, but instead of peanut butter had a caramel center with whole peanuts in it. The customer had tested a process to cut the sticky caramel center material into plugs but needed a way to get the plug centers into the chocolate cups. Graybill devised a handling system that integrated the plug forming and cutting equipment with a handling system to move the centers into the chocolate cups at over 1,400 pieces per minute.