As is generally known, sheet gelatine is widely used in the food sector, in particular in the home, in confectionary establishments, diet kitchens, food factories.
The known process for making film-like sheet gelatine requires a high degree of apparatus expenditure and is time-consuming and costly: Gelatine is put into hot water and stirred until it dissolves. A considerable amount of air is introduced into the solution and so after the gelatine has dissolved completely, degasification has to be carried out in a degasifying apparatus in order to obtain a bubble-free end product. The degased gelatine solution with a water content of between 70 and 75% is sterilized and poured in the hot state out of a pouring vat with a doctor blade onto a cooled roll. The gelatine cools down on the roll and solidifies to a jelly which is drawn as endless, broad band off the cooling roll and then cut into endless strips in a cutting apparatus. The strips are then placed on an endless net and inserted in a dryer with a length of over 100 m. To dry 110 kg of gelatine in the dryer, 35 to 40 million liters of air have to be circulated, and the air has to be dehumidified and sterilized beforehand. Such large quantities of air are required because the drying air may only be heated to under the melting point of the gelatine. After leaving the dryer, the gelatine strips are cut into sheets which are then packed or stored loose. The sheet gelatine leaves the dryer with a final moisture of 10.5 to 11.5%.
With this involved dissolving, solidifying and drying process, the gelatine suffers a considerable loss of gelatinous strength, namely approximately 20 to 25 bloom grams, which means an approximately 10% loss of quality.
The process described hereinabove involves an extremely large number of staff. For an hourly capacity of 110 kg of sheet gelatine, 6 to 7 operators are required. In particular, the packing of the sheet gelatine sheets has to be carried out by hand. It has so far not been possible to use counting machines and automatic packing machines for this purpose, more specifically, for the following reason: Shrinking effects occur during the drying of the sheet gelatine. The sheets tend to roll and, therefore, have to be placed on netting in such a way that they adhere slightly to it. This produces a netting impression on the sheet gelatine. All this unavoidably results in an undulating sheet surface and, in particular, the undulations in the edge regions of the sheets are particularly prominant owing to the particularly strong shrinkage. Owing to these unevennesses on the surface of the sheet, in particular at the edge of the sheet, the sheets become intertwined during singling-out and can, therefore, not be handled by automatic machines. Furthermore, the reject quotas during the final checking of the packages are very high.