Snack Food
Snack Food processing equipment produces food sources such as candy, chips, cookies, and Ice cream. Snack foods often contain substantial amounts of abrasive sweeteners, preservatives, and ingredients such as chocolate and nuts. Enrobing, coating, tempering, extruding, forming, and depositing processes will be exposed to these abrasive slurries. These processes require sliding parts to be highly resistant to abrasion, especially in confectionery and candy processing. Port Plastics provides expert advice to help our customers navigate our vast portfolio of engineered material solutions.
SNACK FOOD Component Applications
Snack Food automation has several components exposed to an array of abrasive and sticky media, such as sugar. The combination of these two properties is problematic because they significantly reduce a component’s life. Snack foods are produced at high rates of speeds, creating frictional heat and material softening that leads to accelerated material erosion. Hoppers, feeders, mixers, and extruders in contact with abrasive mixes often fail prematurely. Materials most often are exposed to from 50° – 450°F and are chosen based on:
- Chemical or pH resistance
- Abrasion resistant
- Non-Sticking
- Resistant to Chipping
- Sliding Properties
- Detection
Typical applications:
- Profiles
- Enrobing Drums
- Mixing Paddles
- Manifolds
- Scrappers
Common materials used in wafer component applications:
- UHMW
- PET
- PBT
- POM
- PTFE
- PEEK
