Austria’s major confectionery manufacturer has made the world renowned Manner Schnitten (wafers) for more than 100 years. The company, Manner AG, was founded in Vienna in 1890, by the merchant Josef Manner. Still family owned the company has its headquarters in the centre of Vienna.

The company has approximatly 750 employees based at three sites: Vienna, Wolkersdorf and Perg. Today Manner AG owns several well-known brands, including: Napoli, Casali, Candita, Walde and Viktor Schmidt, with 50 % of production being exported.

The best-selling product remains the traditional Manner neapolitan wafer, which is now available in a variety of flavours. The product consists of five layers of wafer with four layers of hazelnut cream in between. Originally it was sold in its famous single block packaging, but today it is also available in a block bottom bag.

Production has increased twentyfold
“Over the years our production has increased dramatically to meet the market requirements and it was necessary to modernize  our factories and increase capacity” says Josef Manner, owner and MD of Manner AG, Vienna. The new marketing concept of packing the neapolitan wafers in block bottom bags was a good starting point. Manner installed three new lines for this packaging type.

Combination weighers improve output
Josef Manner explains: “our experience with combination weighers had not been very satisfactory so far.We carried out trials with traditional weighing systems, but 60 % of the product was damaged by long transfer distances on those machines. The particular difficulty in producing and packaging the wafers is caused by the fragile nature of the product”. He goes on further to say that “only when we started working with Multipond Waldkraiburg did we succeed in reducing product damage down to zero”.

A new weigher type eliminates product damage
The solution was a completely new type of weigher, which Multipond had introduced at Interpack 1999 in Düsseldorf: The combination weigher MP 1401-F-BC has no pre-feed hoppers, chutes, or discharge funnel. This is a worldwide unique design. The product is discharged directly from the weigh hoppers on to a belt assembly. This way the product is transported gently and carefully to the packaging machine. Long product transfer distances and drop heights are avoided, which also results in the weigher having a reduced overall height. The central transfer unit is an assembly of four conveyor belts.

One pair arranged underneath the other at a 90 ° angle. Each pair of counter current conveyor belts guides the product towards the central outlet, frequency controlled.

Special requirements 7 x 24 operation
Manner installed three procuction lines for the neapolitan wafers, each including the new combination weighing system made by Multipond. Each line runs continually all week – 24 hours per day in three shifts. The machines are only stopped for product change or cleaning.

During the first testruns in production, it became evident that friction caused an increase in temperature of the conveyor belts, which would have resulted in a more frequent cleaning regime. Manner and Multipond Engineers developed a solution to increase power of the beltdrives and selfinduce cooling at the same time.

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