IN Brief:
- PerfectaGEL ISET is designed to reduce vegan gummy drying from as much as 72 hours to around three hours.
- PerfectaGEL FS can reduce drying time or temperature by up to 50% when used at approximately 1%.
- Shorter conditioning cycles can release drying-room capacity without requiring equivalent investment across the complete production line.
Royal Avebe has developed a potato starch system that can cut vegan gummy drying from as much as 72 hours to about three, targeting one of the slowest stages in starch based confectionery production.
The Dutch cooperative’s PerfectaGEL range is built around the residence time required after depositing. Conventional plant based gummies can spend between 36 and 72 hours in controlled drying conditions before they reach the required moisture level and texture, tying up trays, moulds, conditioned space, energy, and working capital while the rest of the line waits for product to clear.
PerfectaGEL ISET is the more aggressive option. Avebe says the instant setting starch can reduce drying from days to a few hours and is suitable for both starch moulding and rigid moulding, while maintaining a range of textures and supporting fortified gummy formulations across a broad pH range.
The second route, PerfectaGEL FS, is intended to be added to an existing formulation at about 1%. Avebe reports drying time reductions of up to 50%, or the option to lower drying temperatures by a similar proportion, without requiring equipment changes across the line.
Those two approaches address different investment constraints. A processor facing a severe capacity bottleneck can use a faster setting starch to reduce product residence time sharply, while a plant with an established recipe and equipment base may prefer an additive approach that changes the drying profile without forcing a wider line conversion.
Drying occupies an awkward position inside gummy production because it behaves like a batch hold step within an otherwise increasingly automated process. Depositing speed, mogul throughput, conveying, coating, inspection, and packing can all be improved, but overall output still remains constrained when racks of product spend one or two days waiting for moisture to fall to specification.
Reducing that residence time changes the utilisation of more than the dryer. Fewer trays and racks need to remain in circulation, work in progress falls, and a plant can turn conditioned floor space more frequently. Shorter holds also make smaller campaigns easier to schedule because production is less dependent on a large queue of semi-finished product moving slowly through drying rooms.
Energy use follows the same logic. Temperature and humidity control maintained over long periods creates a persistent utility load, particularly in plants where several rooms operate continuously. A formulation that reaches specification more quickly can reduce total conditioning hours, while a lower temperature route can trim thermal demand even where the basic production schedule remains unchanged.
Faster drying can also move the constraint elsewhere. If product leaves conditioning several times sooner, coating, oiling, inspection, and packing equipment must absorb the additional flow without creating new queues. Plants evaluating the starch will therefore need to model the whole line rather than treating the dryer in isolation, particularly where end-of-line equipment was sized around much longer product residence times.
Hygiene and changeover planning remain part of the calculation. Higher throughput can increase the number of campaigns completed within a shift, but it can also expose cleaning, allergen control, ingredient preparation, and packaging changeovers that were previously hidden by a long drying interval.
The formulation challenge remains substantial. Plant based gummies use starches, pectin, and other hydrocolloids that behave differently from gelatine, and acceptable performance depends on solids content, acidity, piece size, depositing conditions, demoulding, coating, water activity, and final pack stability. A faster set cannot compensate for poor control elsewhere in the recipe or process.
Plant trials therefore remain central to adoption. Texture, stickiness, moisture migration, coating behaviour, shelf life, and packaging performance still need to be established against the manufacturer’s own recipe, equipment, and storage conditions before the claimed time saving can be converted into routine factory output.
The pressure to extract more from existing assets is visible across confectionery, where machinery investment has remained cautious even as processors continue to prioritise efficiency and flexibility. Ingredient changes that release capacity without a full line rebuild sit neatly inside that investment climate, provided they survive product and process validation.
PerfectaGEL is unusually easy to assess because Avebe has attached specific production metrics to the proposition. The commercial test is no longer simply whether a plant based gummy can reproduce the bite and appearance of a gelatine product, but whether it can do so without occupying drying capacity for most of the working week.
A reduction from 72 hours to about three would materially change that calculation where recipes and line conditions allow it. The final result will vary by product, but less residence time releases capacity that confectionery plants already own rather than asking them to solve every growth problem by adding another room full of racks.
