Our complete Cocoa Bean Cleaning Line is the industrial solution engineered to deliver up to 99.9% purity, systematically removing stones, metal fragments, dust, and defective beans from your raw material. With fully customizable capacities ranging from 500 kg/h for specialty makers to over 5,000 kg/h for large-scale processors.
Application areas of cocoa bean cleaning lines
Cocoa bean cleaning lines serve as core front-end equipment, ensuring quality, safety, and efficiency across multiple industries. Their primary application areas include:
Industrial chocolate and confectionery manufacturing
They effectively remove hard contaminants like metal and stones from raw materials, protecting subsequent expensive roasters, grinders, and refiners from damage.
Cocoa processing plants
The cleaning line eliminates moldy, insect-damaged, and underripe inferior beans, significantly enhancing the flavor purity of cocoa liquor and directly influencing the quality grade of final cocoa butter and cocoa powder.
Specialty cocoa paste artisans
For cocoa paste manufacturers pursuing ultimate flavor, meticulous raw material selection is central to their brand value. This sorting line not only removes impurities but also precisely grades beans by size, enabling more uniform and controllable roasting.
Cocoa trading and export enterprises
Implementing this sorting line helps exporters enhance raw material purity, thereby gaining greater bargaining power and access to premium markets with stringent quality requirements.
The five stages of the pre-cleaning line
Our line employs a multi-stage process where each machine targets a specific type of impurity, ensuring a thorough and efficient cleaning cycle.
Pre-cleaning: removing large debris
Machine: cocoa bean pre-cleaner
Process: raw beans are first fed into the pre-cleaner. Through a multi-layered vibrating screen system, it effectively removes larger impurities like twigs, leaves, strings, and clumps of dirt, preparing the beans for more refined cleaning.
Destoning: removing stones and heavy materials
Machine: destoner
Process: this machine separates stones, glass, and other heavy objects that are similar in size to the cocoa beans.
It works on the principle of fluidization: a stream of air lifts the lighter cocoa beans, allowing the heavier stones to remain on the vibrating screen and be discharged separately.
Density separation: removing defective beans
Machine: gravity Positive Pressure Separator
Process: this is the key to quality sorting. The machine uses a combination of vibration and a precisely controlled upward air current (positive pressure).
High-quality, dense cocoa beans travel “uphill” along the inclined deck, while lighter, defective beans (immature, moldy, or insect-damaged) are separated and travel “downhill” for removal.
Magnetic separation: removing ferrous metals
Machine: magnetic separator
Process: as the beans flow through this unit, powerful, permanent magnets capture and remove any ferrous metal contaminants, such as nails, wire fragments, or bolts.
This is a critical safety step to protect both consumers and downstream equipment like grinders.
Grading: sizing the beans
Machine: grader
Process: the final step is to sort the clean beans by size. The grader uses a series of screens with different aperture sizes to separate the beans into 2-4 distinct size categories.
This is crucial for achieving a uniform and consistent roast in the next stage of production.
Core advantages of the cocoa bean pre-cleaning equipment
- Achieve ultimate purity: our multi-stage system delivers up to 99% purity, thoroughly removing impurities such as stones, metal, moldy beans, and underripe beans.
- Protect valuable equipment: by eliminating hard contaminants like stones and metal, it effectively prevents damage to expensive roasters, grinders, and refiners.
- Enhanced roasting consistency: grading beans by size ensures more uniform and controllable roasting, preventing small beans from over-roasting while larger beans remain under-roasted.
- Fully automated high-efficiency operation: the entire line features continuous automated design, requiring only 1-2 operators for supervision, significantly reducing labor costs.
- Customized solutions: we tailor production lines to your spatial layout, workflow, and output targets, ensuring seamless integration into your facility.
Complete your cocoa production: recommended downstream lines
Our cocoa bean cleaning line is the perfect foundation. Once you have impeccably clean beans, you are ready to create high-value products. We provide complete, integrated solutions to take you to the next step.
Recommendation 1: Cocoa paste production line
This is the logical next stage. This line takes your clean, graded cocoa beans and transforms them through a process of roasting, peeling, and fine grinding into pure, liquid cocoa paste (also known as cocoa liquor). This paste is the fundamental ingredient for all chocolate and can also be sold as a high-value intermediate product.
Recommendation 2: Cocoa powder production line
To further diversify your product range, this line processes the cocoa paste. It uses a powerful hydraulic press to separate the cocoa paste into two components: valuable cocoa butter and solid cocoa cake. The cocoa cake is then pulverized and milled into fine, high-quality cocoa powder, ready for use in baking, beverages, and confectionery.
We can design a complete, end-to-end solution for you, from raw bean cleaning to final cocoa powder packaging. Contact our experts to discuss your full project vision.
Cocoa cleaning and sorting line successfully exported to Ghana
Client: a leading cocoa cooperative in Ghana.
Challenge: the client’s raw beans had inconsistent purity levels, leading to price penalties from international buyers and barring them from the high-margin specialty chocolate market.
Solution: we installed a complete 2,000 kg/h cocoa bean cleaning line, including our high-precision gravity separator.
Outcome: the cooperative was able to consistently produce beans with over 99.8% purity. This allowed them to secure contracts with several European “bean-to-bar” manufacturers, increasing their average selling price by over 15% and building a reputation for premium quality.
अक्सर पूछे जाने वाले प्रश्न
How much space is required for a complete cleaning line?
The footprint depends on the capacity. We provide a custom layout design for every project to optimize the use of your available factory space.
Can this line be integrated with my existing roasting equipment?
Absolutely. We design our lines with modularity in mind and can include the necessary conveyors and elevators to create a seamless link to your downstream processes.
Can this line handle cocoa beans from different origins and of different varieties?
Yes. Every machine in the line is fully adjustable (e.g., screen angles, air volume, vibration frequency) to perfectly handle the unique characteristics of any cocoa bean variety.
Contact us for a custom solution
The quality of your final product begins with the purity of your raw material. Invest in the foundation of excellence.
Contact our engineering team today to discuss your project. We will provide a free consultation and a detailed proposal for a cocoa bean cleaning line tailored to your exact specifications.