A bespoke solution for Dan Kaffe

A bespoke solution for Dan Kaffe – making one of the best coffees in Malaysia even better.

Dan Kaffe, woman drinking coffee with closed eyes

Dan Kaffe was after a tough mission: upgrading their loyal freeze concentration plant of 25 years to make it more efficient without compromising the premium quality that characterizes them.

As a recognized spray-dried coffee, liquid coffee concentrate, roast and ground coffee producer, Dan Kaffe hast built a solid reputation with its premium quality -but their freeze concentration plant was in dire need of an update after 25 years. Despite consistently delivering the highest quality products, the plant had become outdated and, moreover, was burdened with high complexity and maintenance demands. Fortunately, Santiago Cadavid, Dan Kaffe’s current Managing Director, had an ideal solution: his prior experience at Colcafe, a company within Grupo Nutresa—one of Dan Kaffe’s major shareholders—familiarized him with our IceCon® technology, providing the perfect answer to the plant's challenges.

Workers at Dan Kaffe’s plant.

“The IceCon® technology fits perfectly in Dan Kaffe’s existing freeze concentration plant. The reduction of energy consumption, maintenance cost and the introduction of concentrate recovery after each production run results in a payback period of less than 2 years for the total investment made.”

Timo Van Beek

Sales & Project Manager Freeze Concentration at GEA

GEA designed a bespoke solution for Dan Kaffe, re-using the old plant’s wash columns for ice removal and replacing the old crystallization section with multiple scraped surface heat exchangers for ice production and re-crystallizers for crystal growth, by a one-of-a-kind IceCon^® crystallizer.

Dan Kaffe, freeze-concentration, old process

A diagram of the old crystallization section, consisting of 3 recrystallizers and multiple scraped-surface heat exchangers and product circulation pumps.

Dan Kaffe, freeze-concentration, new process

A diagram of its replacement – a single IceCon® crystallizer. The result is a significant reduction in both energy consumption and maintenance costs.

GEA Expertise at work

The new IceCon^® plant from Dan Kaffe has a pre-cooling system that cools down the coffee extract before it enters the freeze concentrator, maximizing ice production capacity.

Also, the number of moving parts has been reduced, making the new plant easier to operate, lighter to maintain and energy efficient since it consumes 50% less energy in comparison with the old plant. All of this translates in a significative operative cost reduction.

“The successful integration of GEA’s IceCon® technology has not only elevated operational efficiency but has also played a pivotal role in reinforcing Dan Kaffe’s dedication to delivering differentiated and premium-quality products to customers worldwide.”

Santiago Cadavid

Managing Director at Dan Kaffe

In September 2023 the installation started with remote support from the GEA Freeze Concentration team in The Netherlands and since Dan Kaffe didn’t want to compromise their production schedule, most of the installation and commissioning of the new IceCon^® plant was done while the old plant was still running. The time dedicated to connecting the new plant and shutting down the old one was kept to a minimum thanks to a carefully crafted installation & commissioning schedule.

All in all, the operation was a success and the production output targets as well as the concentration levels were met while plant downtime was very limited. Dan Kaffe will go on delivering the best premium quality with the help of GEA IceCon^®.

A partnership that spans decades

The joint story of GEA & Dan Kaffe goes a long way back and we are proud for Dan Kaffe’s new and bespoke IceCon^® plant to join other GEA equipment behind their production of prime quality coffee products.

GEA and Dan Kaffe – the ideal partnership behind prime quality coffee products.

After the extraction process, the low concentration coffee extract enters the pre-cooler of the freeze concentration system and gets cooled down to +4ºC then enters the IceCon^® crystallizer. The outside jacket of the crystallizer is actively cooled, reducing the temperature of the coffee to its freezing point – hence, water will be converted into pure ice crystals. The mixture of coffee + ice crystals is fed into the wash columns, where the ice crystals are efficiently separated. Heat of the refrigeration system is used for melting the ice crystals, eliminating steam consumption.
As the removed water is replaced by fresh coffee extract, the concentration will increase.

Thanks to the low temperature processing and highly efficient removal of pure ice crystals, all nice coffee aromas are maintained in the concentrate -a trait that sets freeze concentration apart from other concentration technologies.

Here is to many more years of good coffee and partnership with Dan Kaffe.