Exclusive: SweetConnect makes the right digital connections
Markus Rustler, president and CEO of Theegarten-Pactec is a founding member of the SweetConnect hub, and has been encouraged by its progress. Pic: Neill Barston
Since launching several years ago, the SweetConnect digital platform has been making significant waves within the confectionery manufacturing world, as editor Neill Barston discovers in speaking to Markus Rustler, president and CEO of founding partner business Theegarten-Pactec, and his colleague Tim Hellwig, discussing its major potential
With manufacturers across the confectionery and snacks sector under continued pressures over their respective operating costs, delivering efficiency and performance savings is more critical than ever.
This has been at the heart of the development of the SweetConnect digital platform, that has continued to make its mark on industry over the past five years. As a founding partner of the venture first put forward as a concept in 2019, German based packaging machinery business Theegarten-Pactec has been proud of its association with the enterprise, which is fast gathering pace in attracting businesses from across Europe.
The company will be offering a key focus on the system at the upcoming ProSweets event in Cologne between 2-5 February, as well as its core packaging machinery lines. To date, the SweetConnect platform, which began its roll-out in 2021, includes key industry including long-established machinery firms such as Sollich, Winkler und Dünnebier Süßwarenmaschinen (WDS), and Chocotech, as well as most recently, Danish bakery and chocolate processing business, Aasted, among many leading lights of the sector.
They have come together in utilising the SweetConnect platform, which has been established to sensitively share production and performance data in a secure manner in a bid to maximise output collectively across the companies’ respective operations.
WDS is among businesses having joined the SweetConnect hub.
As Tim Hellwig, managing director of SweetConnect observed, ‘collaboration is key’ in meeting the demands of a global industry which, as we have previously reported, has continued to face a number of supply chain challenges including inflation Since launching several years ago, the SweetConnect digital platform has been making significant waves within the confectionery manufacturing world, as editor Neill Barston discovers in speaking to Markus Rustler, president and CEO of founding partner business Theegarten-Pactec, and his colleague Tim Hellwig, discussing its major potential of ingredients costs including cocoa and sugar, as well as additional international logistics costs that have continued to have an impact upon the broader sector.
Speaking exclusively to Confectionery Production, the industry specialist revealed that there had been an encouraging take-up of the digital platform. “The idea for SweetConnect came from how we could realise the digitalisation of our company, and for the confectionery industry, and we now have an entire programme for everyone.
“We would like to offer our customers a lot of further benefits, and as an OEM supplier, become much closer to them through digital data services. We want to enable a more transparent overview of our machines, from condition monitoring to predictive maintenance, as well as after sales processes and procurement, as we are all looking to increase uptime as much as we can,” explained Hellwig, who serves as head of digital services for Theegarten-Pactec.
He added that there had been a good deal of enthusiasm about the online system from across industry. He observed that installations of the system had garnered notably positive feedback, though he acknowledged that there was yet further development work to be done to enhance its overall capabilities even further. Significantly, one of the major plus factors of the system is that it has been designed strictly to ensure that companies do not share intellectual property, or customer data.
This point is crucial to the system, particularly in light of commercial sensitivities surrounding many machinery installations, and bespoke requirements for many individual customers. There are now roughly 700 sites around the world that are using the platform, and its user base is continuing to grow, as the demand for making further savings amid uncertain economic conditions globally is driving the pace of change.
Making an impact
For his part, Markus Rustler, CEO and president of Theegarten-Pactec, was equally enthused at the reception that SweetConnect has gained so far, and believed it was having a tangible impact on the market, against a wider backdrop of industry digitalisation. He said: “I think we are very much convinced this is the right direction we took, when we decided several years ago to develop digital products and a platform along with partner companies. “We can already see the positive impact that SweetConnect offers together with our lines. We all know that mechanical design of machines comes to an end at some stage, so you have to think about new benefits to offer customers.
So, it is about increasing the efficiency of production, and joining forces, sharing costs and approaches is the right move,” which has proved itself with the additional companies that have so far engaged with the advanced initiative. As we previously covered, Denmark’s Aasted became the most recent high profile business to join the platform, with the company, based near Copenhagen, agreeing that working together on a singular system made complete sense.
The firm’s CEO, Piet Hoffmann Tæstensen, said that individual solutions had previously entered the market, but that these had left confectionery producers attempting to deal with fragmented systems – which SweetConnect aims to overcome. “It has proven difficult and inefficient for standalone businesses to tackle the complexity a true solution requires alone,” Hoffmann stated.
Moreover, Markus Rustler added that the Danish company’s decision to join the project was a particularly notable moment in the growth of the platform. He added: “We of course are very happy to have Aasted involved. Not only are they very nice people, they have a similar approach to our industry. We are all family-driven businesses that are customerdrive, so it’s a very good fit for them. Having another significant player on the platform makes it even more attractive for our customers to use it, plus we think it will have a positive effect on other OEMs to make the community even bigger.”
“The clear aim and message of SweetConnect is that we are aiming to have a global footprint, including some of our friends in Italy and Switzerland to join the club, and there’s a lot of movement on this happening at the moment,” added Markus of the innovative digital hub. He revealed it has provided significant pluses in terms of its relative ease of use, and ability to make crucial savings for a diverse range of machine manufacturers.
