Dried apple rings from the region

Fancy a natural, healthy snack between meals? Dried apple rings are the perfect choice. They contain lots of fibre, minerals and vitamins. What’s more, the apples are sourced locally. This at least applies to the apple rings that Holderhof has been producing in its modern fruit processing centre in Sulgen for a few weeks now. The processed apples stand out due to their large calibre. «They are too big for the retail trade to sell as fresh dessert apples,» explains company founder Christof Schenk. But an apple is still somehow an apple. And Holderhof has made it its mission to get the best out of every available Swiss apple. Come tot hink of it, these large apples are an excellent raw material for dried apple rings. Reason enough for Holderhof to invest in the necessary equipment. The company is thus bringing back to Switzerland the added value that has been lost abroad in recent years.

Fully automatic drying

Drying apples is nothing new. Quite the opposite: even in ancient times, the Romans and Greeks dried fruit as a winter supply or for travelling. Swiss farming families dried apple slices in the open air or over a wood-fired oven. But of course there is no smell of smoke in the fruit processing centre. Strict hygiene regulations apply here. The apple rings dry in special fruit drying cabinets for around 20 hours in air heated to 45 degrees until they reach the specified final moisture content. Together with the remaining dry matter, this determines the «bite» between the teeth and the flavour. «The rings must not be too dry, but also not too moist,» explains plant manager Michael Köpfli. He and his team tested the right ratio in many trials beforehand. Also good to know: around three large fresh apples are needed for 100 grams of dried apple rings. During the drying process, the apple loses over 80 per cent of its weight. 

The hole in the right place

The control system in the drying cabinet automatically regulates the temperature and air exchange. And the built-in heat recovery system ensures that the energy is utilised efficiently. The actual process starts with a water bath to clean the apples. These must be uniform and of a certain size. Only then can they be positioned fully automatically using a special device for the passage through the peeling machine. Precisely aligned and positioned, the core cutter then hits the apple in the right place. This creates the characteristic hole in the ring. The knives cut the apple into rings of the specified thickness. The Italian-made machine processes up to 100 apples per minute. In addition to apple rings, Holderhof also uses the machine to produce small pieces of peeled apples, which bakeries use in apple strudel, for example.

Naturalness as a principle

Some manual labour is required to place the fresh apple rings on the grids. The Holderhof employees have to place them in the drying cabinet as quickly as possible. «Otherwise they oxidise and turn brown,» explains Michael Köpfli. Foreign manufacturers use sulphur to maintain the light colour and a certain uniformity after drying. This is not the case at Holderhof, which does not use any additives and deliberately dries the peel as well. This is because it contains a particularly high amount of valuable fibre. Michael Köpfli believes that this naturalness gives Holderhof apple rings their very own character. A special packing and weighing machine fills them into the packaging specified by the customers. The drying line in Sulgen runs five days a week. And that is necessary: sales of the apple rings in «Suisse Garantie» quality are going very well, says Michael Köpfli.

The system automatically aligns the large-calibre apples so that the core is cut out in the right place.

The grids with the apple rings are stacked on top of each other.

The weighing machine portions the dried apple rings.