Where'd those chocolate bunnies come from?

Those chocolate bunnies? Most of them take life in injection molded plastic molds. Early this year, to get a jump on the Easter season, Hans Brunner GmbH (Glonn, Germany), a manufacturer of plastic molds for chocolate since 1949, installed a new 2300-tonne MX press from KraussMaffei (Munich, Germany).

Brunner’s managing partners Markus Gebhart (left) and Rudi Schwaiger will be using their large new press for big bunny molds.

This larger machine enables the molder to offer its customers even larger chocolate molds. “This means a lot more to us than simply a capacity expansion,” says Markus Gebhart, one of the processor’s managing partners. “It’s also an investment in the future of the company … Our company is experiencing steady growth and the new machine will enable us to open up new application areas.”

Chocolate molds aren’t all that Brunner makes; the firm also processes molds made of plastics, especially polycarbonate and polysulfone, for the medical and laboratory technology markets. —[email protected]