A chewable gel candy is judged on how it chews. The brief a customer brings us is a description of mouthfeel, and the shell formula is built to that description. This clip follows a PT06 run: heart-shaped die, 200 mg fill, on the SF10 encapsulation line.
The three texture targets
One is how the fill releases: a clean burst on the first bite, or something slower. The second is what the shell does once it has been bitten — hold together and stay chewy, or break up into fragments almost immediately. The third is how much resistance it carries before it gives, anywhere from a soft bite to a real chew that still has spring in it.
Those pull against each other. A shell that resists the first bite is also a shell that tends to stay in one piece, so a strong chew that then fragments quickly is a formula that has to be built rather than picked. PT06 is one shell built against one such brief. A different target means a different formula.
A Tailor-Made shell on the Natural base
PT06 is a Tailor-Made formula — the AMYLOM grade for custom shell work, built on either of our bases. This one sits on the Natural base: hydroxypropyl starch blended with a plant gel, carrageenan or gellan. The shell contains no animal gelatin. Which base a custom formula starts from depends on what the product needs; here it was the texture targets that decided it.
Formed on the rotary die
The two shell ribbons feed over the rollers into the rotary die. The die rolls form the heart-shaped pockets, the wedge injects the 200 mg fill, and the seam is sealed as the pockets close. Off the die the capsules drop to the take-off conveyor. The die is cut to the customer’s shape; fill weight follows the dose.
Tumble drying
From the line the capsules go into a rotary drum for the first drying stage. Tumbling keeps the still-soft starch shells from sticking to each other while the surface sets. The drying end point is part of the texture spec: the shell has to come out firm enough to handle and soft enough to bite.
AMYLOM (Amylom Biotechnology) manufactures plant-based softgels with gelatin-free hydroxypropyl starch shells, for supplements, cosmetics, and specialty formats such as chewable gel candy. See our softgel capabilities or talk to our team about a chewable format and the texture you need it to have.
