Q-Interline wins large order to World’s leading manufacturer of cocoa and chocolate

This is Q-Interline’s first order for measuring cocoa, and with this order, Q-Interline enters a new food segment within confectionery. The order does not change the announced guidance for 2024.

So far, Q-Interline has supplied analysis solutions for quality control in the laboratories of prominent confectionery production companies, where customers measure chocolate, milk powder, oils, nuts, marzipan, and various other ingredients. With this order for two InSight Pro in-line process analysis systems for measuring cacao nibs, this is the first time Q-Interline will supply in-line solution for the production of the most important raw material in chocolate production.

Cocoa beans are first shelled before being crushed into cacao nibs and later processed into cocoa mass and cocoa butter. Cocoa beans vary greatly in quality, colour, and flavour depending on where in the world they are produced and what the growing conditions have been like during the ripening period. However, as consumers, we always want the end product to have the same taste and colour. This places great demands on the cocoa mass producers, who spend a lot of resources mixing different batches of cocoa mass together to get the right colour and flavour.

By measuring cacao nibs before they are processed, manufacturers can gain important knowledge early in the process about how the cocoa mass should be processed, so they can control the process more optimally in terms of colour and flavour.

This order was secured in a close co-operation with an international project team from the customer and Q-Interline. Q-Interline was chosen as the supplier because both the hardware and the competences of the project team fulfil the customer’s wishes and expectations in the short and long term.

“We have worked closely together across borders, and our sales teams from Germany and France have been deeply involved in the project, along with our global and French application specialists and our development department, including conducting pre-studies in our own laboratory,” says CEO Martin Roithner Henriksen.

Q-Interline’s robust and maintenance-free InSight Pro in-line system is designed to be installed directly in the production line because the measuring points are built into a protective housing that can withstand dust, water, high ambient temperatures, and vibrations.

“This is an exciting order as the customer has production in more than 50 countries around the world and they have a need to measure directly in production in several places at each production site. The customer wants to standardise in-line analysis at all their factories around the world, and they need to measure a number of places throughout the production process at each factory. Our InSight Pro in-line solution can connect multiple measuring points with one analyser, which makes Q-Interline’s solution attractive and very suitable for this customer’s needs,” says CEO Martin Roithner Henriksen, and continues, “The customer wants a maintenance-free analyser that can be remotely monitored from a central location, as their factories are spread all over the world. This is exactly what they get with our InSight Pro solution.”