ChocXO delivers key expansion of chocolate manufacturing facilities at its Canadian site
US-founded premium chocolate brand ChocXO has confirmed significant investment made in expanding its production facilities at its manufacturing site in British Columbia, reports Neill Barston.
As the company explained to Confectionery Production, its latest move also includes increasing the size of its warehouse facilities that will enhance its automation capacity by a total of 40% amid wider category growth amid the pandemic.
The expansion of the business, which was founded in Irvine, California in 2014, focusing on delivering simple organic ingredients and low sugar ranges, will also see the creation of a new bar wrapping and advanced caddy packaging line which enables the company to offer more snacking SKUs.
“As we continue to increase our brands footprint across North America, more production and storage space means increased opportunity for ChocXO. We are now well positioned for future growth of our company and our brand,” said Richard Foley, CEO (Chocolate Experience Officer) and Founder of ChocXO. “We will utilise this space to increase product innovation, maximise throughput and efficiency on our current production lines, and with added capacity will be able to double our sales.”
As the company noted, its existing production space was expanded by 10,000 square feet with the build-out of additional processing and packaging space. Before the expansion, ChocXO’s warehouse stood at 55,000 square feet with 18,000 processing and packing and with the expansion, the warehouse now stands at 73,000 square feet with 28,000 processing and packing.
The move involved a 10-month long process that was recently completed with the commissioning and startup of a third production line, in addition to further upgrades and automation of the first two lines.
According to the firm, its enhanced plant, in addition to its unique capability to produce up to 50 boxes of boxed chocolates per minute, with auto display-box erection and insert packing, also has notable bar making and retail bagging capacity with its three moulding lines. These have been integrated from start to finish with the following features: Melting: Over 250,000 lbs of chocolate, tempering: 8 continuous chocolate tempering machines, Moulding: 3 continuous 625-650 mm moulding lines, with one shot, solid and integrated inclusion, and topping capability, wrapping: 2 SiG auto feeding flow wrappers and 3 Carle Bunch and Twist wrappers, Bar Packing: 1 Syntegon bar and caddy packer, Bagging: 2 x R2B Horizontal bagging lines, as well as case packing capabilities.
