Rudolf Wild Gmbh & Co. KG
Accurate colours bear fruit
The WILD Group in Eppelheim near Heidelberg and its allied companies employ 2,500 staff around the world and are market leaders for food additives in many industry sectors. As the producer of Capri-Sonne®, WILD is today the global number one for children's' drinks. Wild is also the world's largest private producer of natural ingredients for the food and beverage industry. WILD has been using Konica Minolta Sensing Chroma Meters as part of its Quality Management since 1993 to monitor its production processes. With the introduction of the CR-200, its first Chroma Meter from Konica Minolta, the company was able to significantly speed up the measurement process when determining and checking colour as part of finished goods inspection. This achieved considerable time and thus considerable cost savings. The Konica Minolta CR-400, the latest generation of Chroma Meters, is currently being used. This instrument is also being used by WILD’s partner companies (especially in the dairy industry) in their received goods inspection departments.
The Chroma Meters ensure that the fruit preparations supplied match the colour profile agreed with the customer. This accelerates and optimises the overall quality assurance process considerably. "The installation of Chroma Meters has delivered a good return on investment over the years", declares Lars Schnoor, Team Leader Scale Up at Wild Dairy Ingredients GmbH. "More than anything, the support and service from Konica Minolta staff is excellent", adds Schnoor.
Safeguarding quality to retain natural goodness
In no other industry have efforts and achievements in Quality Management become so evident as in the foodstuffs industry. For almost 80 years, the company Rudolf Wild GmbH & Co. KG has stood for highest quality levels in this industry. The specialist for natural food additives has contributed to major innovations in the beverage, confectionary and bakery product industry, as well as in the dairy and ice cream product segment, for which the company supplies high-quality raw materials and semi-finished products. This is the basis of the success of many renowned foodstuffs brands in which consumers demonstrate their confidence in the shops and supermarkets, and which they enjoy with their families and friends. Each day, these brands must realise their promises and deliver the quality expected of them.
Established in the 1930’s, WILD is not only an innovator in its field, but is also a leader in safeguarding the quality of its products based on natural ingredients - in its own production facility and those of its customers. This is also illustrated by the branded items, in particular the Capri-Sonne® brand, from the WILD factory, whose products are sold in more than 100 countries. The same is true for the fruit preparations for the foodstuffs industry, which are manufactured in various European locations.
Flavour-imparting additives in various brands of the European dairy industry ensure that the product meets the consumers' expectations and confirm that they have made the right choice. The term "Wild quality" is therefore very widely used and covers much more than just the final product itself. It covers the whole production process which extends from the careful selection of raw materials, through purchasing and raw material procurement inspection, quality assurance throughout the process to the final validation in their own customer's goods received department. Alongside this every action taken is documented. "This not only includes the vigilant selection of the highest quality raw materials by our purchasing department, but also includes the continuous monitoring of flavours, consistency, texture and colour of our products during the production of our fruit preparations", says Lars Schnoor. With this fully integrated quality assurance system, Wild offers standardised and safe complete solutions for the development of new and existing products.
Colour, a sign of good taste
Good examples for the dairy industry are the emulsions for premium fruit yoghurts. Wild Dairy Ingredients GmbH supplies all ingredients in exactly the specified quantity, optimised to ensure the consumers enjoyment of the product. The definitive criteria here are taste, texture, consistency and above all visual appeal. "Our objective is to achieve a harmonious interaction between yoghurt and its fruit additives. “To achieve this,” explains Mr. Schnoor, “frozen fruits, juices and juice concentrates or purees are processed in order to surprise the consumer at the Point of Sales and at home with new innovations and taste sensations".
For the dairy industry, Wild Dairy Ingredients GmbH provides fruit preparations which are mixed with ratio of up to 25% of the dairy product. Colour Measurement is required in particular for the "red yoghurts" such as strawberry, fruits of the forest or cherry yoghurt. Here, even small changes in the red colouring can create the wrong impression regarding the quality. This is because with a strawberry yoghurt, the expected red colour is not only associated with the natural colour of the fruit, but also with its freshness and quality. "In this case, it is necessary to obtain fast and reliable measurements for the colorimetric values of a* (red) and b* (blue) in order to detect natural colour variations of the fruit and to identify deviations in the production process. The agreed colour and intensity can only be obtained by mixing different ingredients during the manufacture of fruit preparations “ says Mr. Schnoor, describing the benefits of colour measurement in the fruit preparations for yoghurts.
Fast measurements which pay off
With this uncompromising quality policy, Wild has become the market leader in many areas. An important factor in this success is colour measurement, which has been implemented at several points within the production chain to ensure the final product meets with the agreed specifications. For more than 16 years, Wild has depended on the reliability and flexibility of Konica Minolta Chroma-Meter instruments. "Before, we were using cuvettes. Although they gave accurate results, they were complicated to use and measurements took an awfully long time", says Schnoor, describing the situation in the early 1990s. “in 1992 we were lucky to discover the Minolta Chorma-Meter CR-200 and see its potential as part of our efforts to improve the quality assurance. Currently, with the CR-400, the fourth generation of Chroma Meters from Konica Minolta provides vital colour measurement values for quality assurance at Wild. Because of this they are highly recommended to their partners throughout the industry. "With the Konica Minolta Chroma Meters we have a reliable measuring instrument which is independent of subjective visual assessment and which is essential to standardise and control production", says Mr. Schnoor, describing the benefits of instrumental colour measurement.In less than one minute, including cleaning the measuring aperture, colour measurements in production, final inspection and receiving inspection can be made precisely, reliably and extremely quickly at Wild, their partners and customers. As an example, measurements, for determining the exact red shade of strawberry yoghurts are available almost three times faster with Chroma Meters than by conventional methods. Short set-up and cleaning times are likewise advantages of the Konica Minolta units for daily routine measurements.
Added to this is the flexible and easy handling of the CR-400, which is a result of the ergonomically designed measuring head as well as the optionally available SpectraMagic NX QC evaluation software, which perfectly links the overall performance of the Chroma Meter.
"It is the complete package of intuitively simple handling, high measuring speed and accuracy, as well as the excellent support and service we receive from Konica Minolta and which we value at Wild Dairy Ingredients” summarizes Mr. Schnoor.
