PPMA Award for APV Baker. (News & Installations).

APV Baker has won a PPMA Award of Excellence for its new chocolate micro-aeration process, launched earlier this year. Micro-aeration, already used to process the chocolate coating of a number of national brands in the UK, allows chocolate to include microscopic bubbles of gas, invisible to the naked eye.

The annual PPMA Awards (Processing and Packaging Machinery Association) have the intention of recognising engineering and related excellence. APV's success comes in the Design and Manufacture section, which recognises innovations in machine design or application. The Bob Newman Medal for this section was, as the picture shows, presented to APV Baker sales director Bob Bestley at the PPMA's annual show dinner, by Mike Gaffney, deputy managing director of Festo.

The application of the micro-aeration system on existing plants for enrobing confectionery, biscuits, bars, cakes and countlines, offers the customers of APV Baker the benefits of enhanced, perceived quality by creating a thicker coating with the same amount of chocolate. There is also new market potential with the possibility of creating novel low-fat deposited chocolate products. The key to the success of this new micro-aeration process is a control system creating a stable structure to withstand processing, achieving aeration levels higher than 10%.