Wrapping Chocolate Truffles
How do we wrap all of those chocolate balls in that you see in retail, buy for parties, or use for other events like Halloween, Christmas, and Easter? Hint, it's not by hand. That was how we started wrapping chocolate bars when we were first starting, but it was painful. This section is a visual tour of how our chocolate wrapping operation actually works for chocolate truffle balls.
This is the Carle Montanari wrapping machine that Dan's Chocolates owns:
And here is another view of it. The LCD screen you see is the display for a computer that runs the entire machine.
We store the wraps on reels, being very careful not to crush the sides of the reels in storage, as that will impede machine performance, and potentially cause a jam. The food-grade aluminum that touches the chocolate truffle ball itself is stored on a different roll:
Next, we thread the truffle ball wrapping material through a series of rollers. These rollers make sure it is nice and flat, and they provide tension so the material is fed into the machine at a constant, steady rate:
And this is what it looks like when it is done:
Then we continue threading the material along a feedbed toward the wrapping mechanism itself. The little black box that you see is an electronic eye, which reads the little black or white square that you see on your Dan's Chocoolate ball wrappers. This electronic eye sets the machine timing. The lower reel holds the aluminum wrap, which you can see coming up to sit just below the polypropylene wrap:
Now it's time to add some chocolate. At the top of the machine, we knock the truffle balls out of their molds into a feeder bin:
And like this:
The balls then flow through feed channels which make sure they roll correctly, and prepare to enter the feed tube:
On the left side of this photo, you can see the truffles coming down the feed tube and dropping into the feed tray. This is a white tray that spins:
The chocolate truffle ball is then pushed up out of the white tray, into a wrapper that is waiting for it, and then, finally, into the grasping jaws near the top of this photo:
The jaws rotate clockwise, forming a wrapping tube and carrying the truffle ball to the station where it will be twisted:
Once grippers have twisted the truffle ball wrapper (visible two photos down), the jaws keep rotating it to the side, or "3 o'clock" position:
And then release it into the exit chute:
Where it falls into a catch bin:
We then put 52 truffle balls in a pack, and check it on a scale:
And shrink-wrap the pack so it stays airtight and fresh for delivery to you or a retailer:
That's it! The only thing that is left is the eating.