A completely different form of coffee filter

Considerable growth

Consumption of instant coffee continues to increase on a global level. The days when many people frowned upon cups of coffee made from powder or extract are long gone. One Jutland company, meanwhile, has been making customised filter solutions for coffee producers all over the world for many years.
The market for instant coffee is growing and growing. The youth segment in big cities in particular are showing enthusiasm for these products, and with more and more variants appearing on shop shelves, including a growing selection of organic products, instant coffee seems to be a growing trend. Hedensted-based company HiFlux Filtration A/S supplies filtering solutions for soluble coffee and extract as part of its regular operations. The producers it works with are spread across the globe, with the East Jutland company’s customised filters installed in South America, Asia and India. As Svend K. Andersen, Managing Director of HiFlux Filtration A/S, points out, a lot has been happening in the industry in recent years.

Managing Director Svend K. Andersen (right) together with Martin Holgaard (left), the first sales manager in the history of the company, by the finished solution in India.

“The market has grown considerably since we first started supplying solutions. The coffee producers have invested a lot of money in product development, with the range expanded year on year. The vast majority of coffee brands have their own line of instant coffee nowadays, for instance. The quality has also increased considerably in the process,”, Svend K. Andersen tells us, before adding that people in Denmark are mostly familiar with big brands and Danish companies, whereas the global market is full of producers specialising in the production of soluble coffee and extract.

Unknown in Denmark, big locally

“A number of them have good market shares locally. They’re not brands of coffee that we’re ever going to become familiar with here in Denmark, but their kind are found in every corner of the world. To give you an example, we recently supplied a self-cleaning two-stage filter to a factory in India”, Svend K. Andersen mentions.

Filtration of extract

This particular filter solution is going to be used in the production of coffee extract, a form of coffee often used in large machines at business premises, petrol stations and in the restaurant business. Several elements of the production method used for this are reminiscent of the general coffee­brewing process: the beans are roasted, ground and heated at high temperatures – the difference being that the coffee is evaporated at the end to form a viscous concentrate. This can then be freeze-dried or spray-dried to create a finished instant product. Filtration is an important part of this process.

The finishing touches are made to the two-stage filter for coffee production in India. A customised solution service is provided to locations across the world from the company’s Hedensted base.

Totally clean product

“Our two-stage filter has a coarse filtration function and a fine filtration function. Two lines work constantly to filter out dirt and residual particles from the coffee and create a totally clean product at the end. Coffee always has to be filtered, regardless of where in the world it is produced,” Svend
K. Andersen points out.

One filter ensures fine filtration of the coffee, the other coarse filtration. The solution runs on two lines simultaneously, meaning use of four filters in total.

First-ever sales manager

He goes on to explain that it really helps to have good partners when trying to make inroads into the coffee segment, adding that HiFlux Filtration is set to focus more on global business in the future. The company has recently appointed Martin Holgaard as its first-ever sales manager. His main task will be to coordinate the efforts for new markets and optimise efforts for existing ones. A network of distributors and partners will now be linked up even more closely with the Hedensted-based filter producer – and not just for the coffee market.

Solid starting point

“There are a number of sales opportunities that we could take better advantage of. Gaining new business is a hard slog, like in many other industries. Although our focus on fully automatic filters gives us a solid starting point for further growth, we need to keep developing, both from a product perspective and in sales,” Svend K. Andersen concludes.