Prefamac Recycled Chocolate Moulds

Prefamac, a Belgium manufacturer of chocolate machines and moulds, is helping the environment by making recycled chocolate moulds. Not only is the product green, but it also is less expensive than their original counterparts. Of course, Prefamac still sells the original version and all of their moulds are available as new or recycled.

According to Jill Schreurs, Sales and Marketing, Prefamac does not know of any other company manufacturing recycled moulds. The moulds were tested at a university. They performed a comparison study between the transparant and recycled moulds. Conclusion: neglectable difference in quality.

The only drawback is that the recycled moulds may be a bit more difficult to work with. Since they are not clear, it is hard to see if all the air bubbles are out and to determine when the chocolate is ready to come out of the mould. Important considerations that can be overcome with experience.

Prefamac has a wide variety of mould designs available that can be exported all over the world. In addition to their standard designs, customers can have custom chocolate moulds made. The process of having custom moulds made is quite involved and expensive, so it works best when large quanities of moulds are being ordered for commercial purposes.

In addition to moulds, the company makes industrial and non-industrial chocolate making equipment and machinery. Some of the products include: tempering machines, melting kettles, moulding machines, flaking machines, enrobing belts, spinning machines, vibration tables, cooling tunnels, cutting devices, and more. If you are interested in buying their equipment, you should also consider buying moulds at the same time. Often, the moulds can be shipped with the machinery with no or little extra cost.

For more information, visit the Prefamac website. We at TCMF would like to express many thanks to Prefamac for sharing information about their products. Also, we sincerely appreciate the efforts the company is making to come up with new solutions that are sensitive to the environment.

Toy Chocolate Coin Maker

If you ever wanted to know how imprinted, foiled chocolate coins are made, you can find out by buying a toy for less than $8 at Toys R Us. The Golden Chocolate Coin Maker is a simplistic, yet effective, toy that allows you to make foiled chocolate coins with embossed images. You can choose from a selection of 19 messages and designs to emboss your coins with, or you can make your own with the included scribe tool. The set I bought included some gold foil to get you started.

The process is the same as if you were going to be making thousands of coins. The chocolate is molded into the shape of a blank coin. Next foil is cut and wrapped aroun the chocolate. This is done by first foiling the bottom, then foiling the top, making sure to overlap the bottom. Next, you pick two dies, one for each side of the coin. One die is put on the bottom of the molded chocolate and the other is put on top. Put the sandwiched coin in the coin maker and when the handle is turned, force is put on the dies and the images are pushed into the chocolate. The finished product is a foiled coin with an imprinted image.

Obviously, this is only a toy and real chocolate makers have more automated systems; however, this is a great way to learn the process for a small amount of money.

Chocolography - Chocolate Printing Company

In the digital age people have been looking for different methods of getting detailed images on chocolate and candy products. There are various ways to accomplish this, but it is difficult to actually print directly on chocolate. Historically this has been done by applying some type of sugar base to the chocolate and printing on that. Now the Chocolate Printing Company of New York has invented a food imaging system that can print high resolution, color images directly on the surface of chocolate and other food products.

The Chocolography food imaging system consists of hardware, software, and pre-molded food products that are ready for you to customize with text, graphics, logos, and pictures in full color. The system does not only work on chocolate, but can also be used on marshmallows, sugar, fondant, marizipans, fudge, and gum pastes. The products availiable for printing on are chocolate coins, chocolate bars, lollipops, greeting cards, portraits, cookies, hard candies, truffles, bakery decorations, and much more. According to their website, the system is capable of producing up to 620 pieces per hour. It fits on a 6' table and is easily portable enabling live printing on chocolate at any event.

Those who buy into the system receive more than just the machinery and software. As part of the licensing, you also receive marketing materials, a lifetime website, and training. Currently the complete package costs approximately $49,000 and includes a special bonus of 5 years free ink.

To learn more, go to the Chocolography website.

Personalized M&M's, Hershey Kisses, and Dove Promises

The trend for customized or personalized chocolate is going mainstream. Here is a copy of a story from The Chicago Sun Times about the All Candy Expo.

May 21, 2008

BY CHERYL V. JACKSON cjackson@suntimes.com

Candy makers are getting personal. That's one trend clear from this week's All Candy Expo at McCormick Place. Some 2,000 candy and snack food items are being shown to buyers Tuesday through Thursday at the National Confectioners Association show.

James Cass, V.P. and General Manager of MARS direct, holds a MandM candy with his picture on it. This new product can be ordered with either pictures or praises printed on them. Among the new offerings were ways to customize your candy.

You can create a special Kiss. The Hershey's Co. is offering the ability to customize its chocolate Kisses, letting customers pick from a collection of messages to be printed on the paper plume.
The company is exploring allowing the customers to create original messages, said Jody Cook, a spokesperson.

Mars is taking its already popular special-order M&Ms beyond messages or custom colors. How about your own picture on M&M's chocolate candies? You can do that starting next month, when Mars Snackfood U.S. allows customers to have the candies imprinted with their images. Upload a photo portrait at MyMms.com, create a message and choose from about 17 colors.

In addition, Mars' Dove Promises chocolates can be ordered with personalized messages on the wrappers, at Mydovechocolate.com. Mars also is courting chocolate lovers with a premium version of M&Ms, which will have a softer candy shell, the company announced Tuesday.

Custom Molds Made from Rubber Stamps

At The Chocolate Mold Factory main site, there are articles about using photopolymer plates to make custom chocolate molds with logos, text, and other computer graphics. In the same line of thinking, one can also use rubber stamps. The process of making rubber stamps is very similar to photopolymer plates. In fact, many rubber stamps are made of photopolymer, a chemical which is sensitive to UV light.

To use a rubber stamp to make a chocolate mold, you can take a finished rubber stamp and attach it to a base in the shape you want your chocolate. Say for example you wanted a bar. Well, you could take a plain chocolate bar mold and attach the rubber stamp to the top of it. Next, to make the mold you would pour food grade silicone rubber over the mounted stamp. When it has cured, remove the rubber stamp and base. Now you have a custom chocolate mold.

If you are going to be making chocolates for your own use, you can go to the craft store and buy rubber stamps. However, I wouldn't recommend doing this if you intend to sell the chocolate or the mold. The rubber stamp industry is very sensitive to copyright infringment. Check with the rubber stamp manufacturer's "angel policy". An angel policy is a rubber stamp company’s established permission for use of their images by the consumer or copyright use policy. Each company has its own policy. Some images, such as licensed images have different, usually more restrictive policies.

If you want to do logos or custom graphics, you can have a rubber stamp company make custom unmounted rubber stamps for you. One of the many companies that provides this service is Picture My Stamp. Their premium custom rubber stamps are made with natural gum rubber. The deeply etched image is twice as deep as regular stamps. You can email them your custom artwork and they will make rubber stamps for you. You can buy them unmounted and then just cut them to the size you want. You could also have them cut it for you.

Using rubber stamps to make custom chocolate molds in this way is generally a bit more expensive than using photopolymer plates or magenesium hot stamping dies. However; they are much easier to work with and there are more companies you can order them from. You may even be able to contact someone in your local area that can make the rubber stamps for you, which would save alot of money on shipping costs, not to mention that you would probably get it in a shorter period of time.

Ecole chocolat Professional School of Chocolate Arts

For those of us living in rural areas, access to a local professional chocolate education is not an option. Luckily, there is a professional, online program available. Ecole chocolat has an intensive, part-time professional chocolatier program that is taken 100% online over a three month period.

The curriculum prepares you for production of fine chocolate bonbons and bars. It includes chocolate history, industry and product knowledge, physiology of taste as it relates to recipe development, professional production techniques for bonbons and bars as well as marketing and operation issues involved in opening a chocolate business. Students completing the program will receive a certificate of achievement.

The cost for the professional chocolatier program is $595. Classes normally begin in January, April, and September each year. The classes do fill up, so if you are interested you may want to register early.

In addition to the professional chocolatier program, Ecole Chocolat offers other programs such as chocolate making, quality assurance, and master chocolatier.

Estimating the Weight of a Molded Chocolate

Often times people are looking for a mold based on the desired weight of the finished chocolate. This information can be used for establishing prices, budgeting expenses, and estimating supply needs. Unfortunately, most mold manufacturers do not list the weight of each piece in their sales descriptions. Thus, you have to do a little math to estimate the weight.

Say for example, a chocolate mold has 6 cavities that are 2" length x 2.5" width x .5" deep. How much will each finished chocolate piece weigh? In order to figure out the answer you will need to know the following calculations:

Cubic Inch = Length x Width x Depth

1 Cubic Inch = 0.554112554 US fluid ounces

1 US fluid ounce = 28.3495231 grams


So, in our example:

Cubic Inch = 2 x 2.5 x .5 = 2.5 cubic inches

2.5 cubic inches x .5541 = 1.385 US fluid ounces

1.385 US fluid ounces x 28.3495 = 39.27 grams

Therefore, one mold would make 6 chocolates that weigh approximately 39 grams.

Scharffen Berger Factory Tours

If you are in the San Francisco area, you may want to take some time to take the Scharffen Berger Factory Tour. You can take a brief walking tour of the factory, sample chocolate, and learn about how chocolate is made. There are two different types of factory tours - public and private. The public tours are free and there is a nominal charge for the private tours. Even if you can't visit the factory, you can take a virtual tour online.

Reservations are required and can be made online. You must wear closed toe shoes and children must be 8 years or older for safety reasons. The contact info is as follows:

914 Heinz Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710

510-981-4066

tours@scharffenberger.com

While you are there you can also eat at Café Cacao, which is located in the Scharffen Berger factory. The restaurant offers savory dishes as well as chocolate desserts, pastries, and special blends of coffee. Their hours are:

Coffee & Pastries - Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Lunch daily - 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Friday only Dinner - 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Weekend Brunch & Lunch Saturday and Sunday - 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Weekend Coffees & Pastries - 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Vivak PETG Plastic

Many people making vacuum formed molds for chocolate prefer to use PETG plastic instead of the more expensive polycarbonate. Polycarbonate is definitely the gold standard when it comes to professional chocolate molds, but it is probably not necessary if you are only going to be making short production runs for your own purposes. It is much easier to form and yet is still very strong.

According to Sheffield Plastics, the manufacturer of Vivak (PETG),

"VIVAK is the brand and market leader for PETG products. Among its advantages, VIVAK PETG products offer superior impact strength over acrylic and cost effectiveness compared to polycarbonate, and offers deep draws, complex die-cuts, and precise molded-in details without sacrificing structural integrity. It die-cuts and punches easily, and can be bonded or fastened with adhesives, ultrasonic welding, or rivets. In addition, VIVAK is easily decorated by painting, silk screening, or hot stamping. Easy to fabricate, form, bond, and decorate, VIVAK PETG sheet products are well suited for a variety of point of purchase and other applications."

On their website, they have a 12 page guide for fabrication, forming and finishing. To view it click here: http://www.sheffieldplastics.com/web_docs/BRO009.pdf.

Chocolate molds made of PETG are usually made in thicknesses of .020", .030", .040", and .060". Obviously, the thicker the plastic, the more rigid the mold will be. All of these thicknesses, with the exception of .060", are easily cut with a good pair of scissors. The .060" is a bit more difficult to cut, but it can be done with scissors, scored and snapped, or with a saw.

There are many sources for buying PETG over the internet. Just type "PETG" into any search engine and you will find plenty of companies selling it. Also, I advise you to check your local phone listings first because plastic is fairly expensive to ship, as it can be quite heavy.

Artwork Guidelines for Custom Chocolate Molds

If you have ever tried to order a custom chocolate mold with a logo or graphics, you may have wondered what the artwork requirements are all about and why people are not willing to bend when it comes to them. Most mold makers require very clean, black and white line art. No fine lines; no small letters; alot of space between characters. Photos are generally not acceptable unless they can be easily converted into line art.

The reason is related to the method in which the mold, or the model for the mold, will be made. For example, if the mold maker will be making vacuum formed plastic molds, characters must be adequately spaced and sized to allow the plastic to form properly. Silicone molds are a bit more forgiving, but still have limitations. If the mold maker will be using photo-sensitive materials such as photopolymer printing plates or magnesium hot stamping dies to make the model, the blank spaces within and between the letters must be large enough to wash away. If the lines are too fine, there is a danger that the line itself will actually wash away. If the mold maker is going to be using CNC machinery, the fonts will have to be large enough for the cutting to be done.

In an effort to avoid these problems in the first place look at the letters "a", "o", and "e" for clues. These are often the hardest letters because the spaces are so small. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules about what size font to use, or how much spacing is needing. It depends on the font. However, I would really recommend not using anything under a 36 pt. Arial for comparison purposes. Generally, the larger the font the better.

While on the subject of fonts, you must pay particular attention to the font you use. The best fonts will be bold and simple, without serif (which is the little decorative lines at the ends of the letters). These fonts may be labeled "sans serif". Script and cursive fonts can be used as long as the font is large enough and the lines are not too fine.

The requirements will also be different if you are going to have the text recessed, rather than raised, on the chocolate bar. To accomplish this, you will need an even larger font to ensure that the desired area is washed away completely and deeply.

For more information about making custom molds, see the Learn section of The Chocolate Mold Factory.