A dynamic range of confectionery industry innovations were put forward for this year’s World Confectionery Awards, as our list of finalists for 2026 adeptly demonstrates, writes Neill Barston.

Developments within machinery have proved a hotly-contested category have proved notably worthy over the past five years of operating our awards, and this year has been no exception.

Our five-strong list finalists this year, which will be presented at our World Confectionery Conference on 10 September at One America Square, include a notable balance of firms from across equipment segments.

Registration is fully open for this year’s event, which includes keynotes from Caobisco European confectionery trade association, Ferrero, Cargill and major insights from our knowledge partners, Euromonitor International. You can sign up to attend this year’s show, which is our fifth live conference, via the following direct link. 

The contenders include Uk machinery firm BCH, which has nominated its DMS 6 – Six Colour, Six Flavour Dynamic Mixing System, claiming a key step forward in confectionery processing, giving manufacturers flexibility while improving product quality and efficiency.

As the company noted, traditional liquorice production requires complete system changeovers between flavour or colour variations, resulting in lengthy downtime, increased labour, product waste and reduced productivity. The DMS 6 eliminates these limitations by enabling up to six different colour and flavour combinations to be produced simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Australia’s TNA has developed three new innovations for its tna mogul platform that help confectionery manufacturers reduce waste, improve productivity and maximise existing assets.

As the firm explained,  these innovations optimise labour efficiency, save up to 25 minutes per changeover, and enable retrofit upgrades on existing mogul installations. This has included resolving a number of tests including tackling 
product giveaway and inconsistent weight control impacting profitability and sustainability.

The system also reported increases SKU complexity requiring greater flexibility and faster product changeovers. Furthermore, the line also responds to the reality of labour shortages driving demand for automation and reduced operator intervention.

For its part, Swiss-based Bühler has launched a wide range of systems within the past year including its Lucent, a new industrial cocoa nib roaster designed to improve energy efficiency, product quality, and food safety while reducing operating costs.

Compared to its predecessor, Tornado, Lucent consumes at least 20% less energy and delivers up to 20% higher throughput within the same footprint. Depending on the application, its hybrid roasting process can achieve up to 40% energy savings.

Pic: Bühler

German-based Syntegon has nominated its SVX Agile with advanced corner-seal capability, which made its world debut at interpack 2026. This has made a significant step forward in vertical packaging for confectionery, snacks and bakery products. As the firm noted, it combines high performance, premium bag styles, intelligent process control and readiness for more sustainable packaging materials in one compact, flexible platform.

Corner-seal bags such as block-bottom, Full Corner and Doypack formats offer strong shelf appeal and excellent stability, but they are traditionally demanding to produce at high speed and with consistent quality. Syntegon has addressed these challenges by redesigning the process around precision, reproducibility and ease of operation.

Industry collaboration
Completing our finalists, Tanis has put forward its recently announced joint venture with  Aasted. As the company explained, they have combined their respective expertise to introduce a fully integrated candy bar production concept that eliminates one of the most established process steps in confectionery manufacturing: slab forming followed by slitting and cutting.

As the business outlined, the innovation does not lie in a single machine, but in the integration of preparation, cooking, aeration, extrusion, cooling and enrobing technologies into one continuous and controlled process. By combining Tanis’ expertise in confectionery mass preparation with Aasted’s extrusion, cooling and chocolate processing technologies, manufacturers can produce a wide range of candy bars through a simplified and more efficient process architecture.

Confectionery Production editor Neill Barston noted: “The equipment category for our 2026 World Confectionery Awards that will be presented next month at our key conference have proved that innovation is very much alive and well across our industries.

“Perhaps there is little surprise that in an interpack year, there should be such a high degree of technological creativity on show in this present challenging climate, yet this only serves to further underline that there’s a genuine resilience to our combined confectionery and snacking sectors.”