The Importance of High Quality Gummy Molds
A commercial-grade gummy mold is a central component of any scalable gummy vitamin manufacturing process. While it might seem like a piece of tooling that can easily be taken for granted, a quality mold will directly benefit your batch quality as well as consistency.
Today, we are going to highlight some key points that illustrate the importance of gummy molds.
The Purpose of Gummy Molds
Molds serve more than one purpose when manufacturing gummy pharmaceuticals.
Gummies begin as a heated liquid mixture called a “slurry” before they are chilled and shaped into their finished forms. The mold protects the gummies while they are chilling and provide the shape for them to form into. This helps to restrict movement and ensure that the individual units dry into their intended shape.
Molds are an indispensable piece of equipment for your manufacturing process. Without a commercial-grade mold that is designed for repeated use, the slurry cannot be properly separated once it dries. If no mold is used at all, you would have a large gelatinous mass that will create a difficult cleanup at your facility.
Types of Gummy Molds
There are two primary types of gummy molds: silicone and Teflon-coated. Both offer their own advantages, and selecting the right material largely depends on your personal preference.
Silicone is a flexible material that can easily be molded into desired shapes and maintains a fine line between solid rigidity and flexibility during your manufacturing process. When purchasing a silicone mold, make sure that it is built to commercial-grade standards with enough durability to continue providing usefulness through long-term, repetitive use.
A Teflon-coated mold is made from aluminum and is most commonly used in automatic depositing systems, compared to silicone’s more frequent use with manual depositors. Teflon-coated molds often require minimal maintenance and cleaning for easier manufacturing at a cost-effective price point.
The Teflon coating also results in greater surface slickness. This can help to prevent gummy units from sticking. You can further enhance this property by chilling the mold and spraying it with a food-grade oil like sunflower oil.
Both types of molds can be cleaned either with a commercial dishwasher or hand-washed with dish soap. If you are using a dishwasher, use its gentlest setting to preserve the mold for longer and maintain its structural integrity.
How to Make Custom Molds
There are a number of reasons why your business may be seeking a custom solution for gummy molds. For example, you or your client may have a licensing agreement with a media property and want to create a series of proprietary shapes based on the IP.
At Gummy Technologies, we develop custom gummy molds for many of our customers. We follow a simple four-step process that involves:
1: Design Concept
Send us a design that you wish to create a mold for. This can be created as a manual drawing, digital illustration, or even a sample of a physical gummy that you want to make at a larger scale. We also request that you include the desired weight of the gummy and your machine’s make and model information.
2: Digital Drawing
Once we have received your concept and other information, we will develop a digital representation of your product mold for you to review. If adjustments are necessary, we will continue revising the model with you until we have reached a design that you are satisfied with.
3: Quote
Following your approval of the design, we will send you a quote that outlines the costs involved to produce your custom mold. We will require a 50% deposit to begin manufacturing.
4: Fabrication
After receiving the first 50%, we begin fabrication of your custom mold, which can take between 4-6 weeks. We will notify you when the molds are ready for shipment and will send them to you after receiving the second half of the total payment.
Get Custom Molds for Your Gummy Tech Equipment
Our team at Gummy Tech is committed to providing you with the most innovative solution for gummy manufacturing that is tailored to your specific requirements. As a subsidiary of CapPlus Technology, we leverage our experience producing the world’s leading pharmaceutical equipment to bring you a superior scalable solution for your gummy vitamins and supplements.
If you are interested in a commercial-grade gummy mold for your machinery, contact us today. In addition to custom designs, we can also create ones using traditional shapes and sizes to offer you a complete range of options.