Prize-winning machines from Carle&Montanari

Different wraps, same machine, with considerable advantages in terms of production process versatility and flexibility: with this innovation Carle&Montanari Wrapping Systems has won the IPR – Intellectual Property Rights – prize offered by Innovami to support the patenting process in Imola and its environs.

This prize - a contribution that significantly reduces the cost of completing the European patenting process – is specifically designed to support “real” inventions, such as patents and utility models, developed in one of the 19 municipal districts in which the Cassa di Risparmio di Imola Foundation operates. What attracted the judges’ attention was the sheer innovating skill demonstrated by Carle&Montanari – Italy’s top chocolate industry group thanks an agreement between Sacmi and IMA, signed a few months ago – in completing what is a significant production process innovation: the inclusion of different chocolate wrapping styles (double twist, Neapolitan and, thanks to the patent, also single-twist style) on a single machine.

The innovation that is the subject of the patent (to compete for the prize it was necessary to have begun the patenting procedure by 1st July 2008) regards the introduction of a vertical-axis picker wheel that rotates the product 90 degrees; this also makes it possible to package single-twist chocolates with extremely contained style set-up changeover times. A solution, then, that is perfectly in keeping with the general policy of the new Carle&Montanari Holding of focussing on product and process synergies and providing high-performance, flexible turnkey plant engineering solutions to the Italian chocolate industry.