Tanis sales director Peter Tanis said the large surface area of the firm's Twin Barrel tempering unit meant it could produce more crystals, more quickly in a range of products, such as wafer creams and biscuit creams.
"In relation to other products on the market ours has the same building length yet around five times the surface area," said Tanis.
"The large surface area makes crystallisation significantly faster. Cooling time between production and being able to handle the product in packaging can be reduced by around 30 per cent," he said.
And Tanis, based in the Netherlands, has recently developed the tempering unit so that it can work with substitutes for trans fats, offering a practical incentive to bakery and confectionery producers looking to move away from this artery-clogging ingredient.
The firm adds that longer crystallisation times were already one of the main disadvantages of using trans fats in some food production.
Food industry interest in trans fat alternatives has been growing as scientific reports have increasingly accused the ingredient itself, also known as hydrogenated fat and used to extend shelf-life and maintain structure in a variety of foods, of raising consumer cholesterol.
A number of companies have already made moves to remove trans fats from their production methods, such as PepsiCo in its Frito-Lay crisps and in Britain Northern Foods said it had removed hydrogenated oils from its plain Fox's biscuit products without a cream filling.
In late February, Israel became the world's third country to announce plans to impose compulsory labelling of trans fats on products.
All manufacturers in the US will also have to list trans fat content on product nutrition labels after 1 January 2006, while the last few weeks have seen calls for trans fat labelling rules from food safety and consumer groups in France and Australia.
Back in 2003, Denmark actually banned oils and fat from the market if they contained more than two per cent trans fatty acid, effectively banning partially hydrogenated oils.
Tanis' Twin Barrel tempering unit therefore offers bakery and confectionery producers a good way in to trans fat-free formulations, helping them to avoid growing criticism and appear more responsible to health-conscious consumers.
Tanis, which supplies aeration equipment worldwide to A-band companies, will display its Temp Twin Barrel at the Interpack expo to be held later this month in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The firm said it had sold most units in the US and UK, where publicity about the dangers of trans fats has been stronger.
Other Tanis products on display at Interpack include a high sensitivity depositor and new processing equipment; both ideal for big bubble chocolate products, a range the firm said was growing in popularity among consumers.