Frontline Food Consultants and Engineers specialize in offering end-to-end consulting solutions for hard candies production and manufacturing. Starting from procurement of high-quality raw materials which include sugar, glucose syrup for candy-making production, and other specialty flavors to developing sweet recipes for your product. Our team assists in preparing your product to fit the market. To gain perfect texture, clear appearance, and great taste, we control the cooking time, shaping, and cooling steps.

Some of our services are regulatory compliance Guidance to make certain that your hard candies are safe and properly labeled. We also provide packaging solutions for your products that preserve freshness and include eye-catching displays, and conduct joint research work on the recipes and flavors including color, no-sugar-added, and much more. According to the adopted taste, feel, appearance and texture, your hard candies would have passed through intensive sensory evaluation, and quality assurance to meet the consumers’ expectations. We also provide solutions for Candy Quality Control Production and Traditional Indian Hard Candies Production. 

What are Hard Candies?

Hard candies refer to sugar candy that has been cooked to high temperatures so as to solidify into a supercooled glass-like state. The process of hard candy involves heating sugar with water and glucose syrup to high temperatures so that the mixture is boiled to reach a hard crack stage of about 150 degrees C (300 degrees F). This stage is very essential to develop what is referred to as a hard, brittle texture typical of hard candies.

When the syrup is hot enough it is cooled down to an extent and then prepared with flavors as well as colours. It is then poured in forms, or pulled or shaped in some manner to give its final form, according to the type of candy intended to be produced. The only problem with cooking it fast is that after stirring to mix all the ingredients, the mixture needs to be allowed to harden quickly or be set depending on what the intended candy would be called.

Hard candies are different from other candies and their manufacture requires several pieces of equipment. Sugar cookers are used to heat sugar and glucose syrup and to make the base of the candy at very high temperatures. Flavor and color mixers are used to incorporate flavors and colors evenly into foods. The hot candy mass is then pressed through batch rollers and formers to produce continuous ropes. The material of these ropes is separate in candy cutting machines and divided into small portions. The candies are then cooled and hardened in commercial conveyor cooling tunnels. The last stages include wrapping and packaging machines that act as sealants to put the candies to allow freshness to set in during storage and conditioning machinery.

Hard Candies Production Process

  1. Cooking:

Objective: Cook sugars and get the hard candy formation temperature and texture right.

Temperature Control: Bake the sugar mixture to temperatures of between 150-160°C, using to reach the hard crack stage (300-310°F).

Ingredients: Mixing of sucrose, glucose syrup, water, and the permitted flavoring and colorings may be accompanied by the addition of acidulants where necessary.

Equipment: Large volume cooking kettles, continuous cookers with accurate temperature management systems and appropriate stirring mechanisms to ensure that there is consistency of heat distribution.

  1. Cooling and Forming:

Objective: Leave the candy mixture to cool and to harden in a shape of your choice.

Temperature: It requires that the candy mass should be cooled to between 90-100°C before forming to get the right texture.

Mold Design: Use molds which are made of stainless steel or silicone, or have continuous casting equipment in a manufacturing process.

Cooling Systems: Such systems can be built as controlled cooling system s also known as, cooling tunnels that allow for methodical reduction of temperature and which enable the creation of candies that are stress-free and solid.

  1. Cutting and Shaping:

Objective: When the candy has cooled, you should then portion the candy into individual pieces.

Techniques: If attempting to yield uniform pieces of the fabric then it is best to use rotary knives, die cutting machines, or cutting blades.

Equipment: Power cutter and shaper models suitable for cutting different sizes and shapes of candies.

  1. Coating and Polishing:

Objective: Coat to make the surfaces glossier and not sticky.

Coatings: For sheen and varnish, use a bog or wax type covering substance.

Equipment: Fine sanding of drums or painting machines in order to ensure even application of the coating on the body of the candy.

  1. Packaging:

Objective: Preserve candies from environmental conditions so that candies do not get spoiled.

Packaging Types: Choice of heat-sealed wrappers or flow-wrapped films that make them a moisture and contamination barrier.

Equipment: Packaging lines with inspection methods that guarantee credible packaging standards and packaging correctness.

Equipments Required

Cooking Kettles and Continuous Cookers:

  • Function: Melting sugar mixtures to specific temperatures ought to.
  • Design Specifications: They consist of a temperature control system for an accurate cooking process and a viscosity control system.

Cooling Tunnels:

  • Function: Slowly decrease candy temperatures to enable it to become solid, and eliminate vice.
  • Design Specifications: Having definite air control and temperature conditions for the uniform cooling of the equipment.

Cutting and Shaping Machines:

  • Function: After cooling candy, cut and shape candy into small individual pieces.
  • Design Specifications: Includes computerized knives as well as templates for varying shapes and dimensions or sizes.

Coating and Polishing Equipment:

  • Function: Touch up surface coatings for aesthetic purposes, and minimize stickiness.
  • Design Specifications: For example, it has polishing drums and coating systems to which it applies accurate controls of the coatings’ deposition.

Packaging Machines:

  • Function: Terminate the packaging process of candies just to preserve the quality of the candies and their freshness.
  • Design Specifications: Packaging line equipment and packaging material handling systems that include wrapping, sealing and labeling for effectiveness.

Types of Hard Candy Products

  1. Sugar-Free Hard Candies:
  • Ingredients: Sweeteners (sorbitol-xylitol), flavoring agents and colours.
  • Characteristics: Deliver the sweetness without sugar meaning that the product is friendly for diabetics.
  1. Traditional Indian Hard Candies:
  • Products: Mango flavored candy, black candy sweet, fennel seed sweet.
  • Ingredients: Fruit purées or concentrates, spices, sugars and occasionally edible gums.
  • Characteristics: Brochure design among the different aspects of the celebratory meal, incorporate traditional Indian flavors and spices.
  1. Mint Flavored Hard Candies:
  • Ingredients: Peppermint or spearmint, sugar, glucose syrup.
  • Characteristics: Offer a very pleasant taste and also some special value as mouthwash that helps with halitosis.
  1. Fruit-Flavored Hard Candies:
  • Ingredients: Fruit concentrates, natural or artificial flavors, natural or artificial colors.
  • Characteristics: Fruit flavors are also possible, and examples would be orange, strawberry, and apple.
  1. Functional Hard Candies:
  • Ingredients: Increased vitamins or minerals, or an herbal extract.
  • Characteristics: Specific for reasons like boosting of immunity or relaxation.