The better the cafe, the more it says it uses "coffee processed directly from beans," not that it "bought ground coffee." It is the same with chocolate. To get the flavor we want, we have to process from the cacao bean ourselves.
On the afternoon of the 10th, four days before Valentine's Day, Choi Myeong-wan, head of the Yangsan plant at Lotte Wellfood's Yangsan factory in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province, said, "Only through this process can we properly realize the flavor we want. The identity of chocolate is determined from the cacao bean."
Lotte Wellfood's Yangsan factory is the only plant among major domestic food corporations equipped with a "BTC (Bean to Chocolate) line" that directly processes cacao beans (Cacao bean) to produce cacao mass (Cocoa liquor, a pure cacao in liquid form used as a key chocolate ingredient). Since introducing the BTC line in 1995, it has been producing cacao mass in-house for 31 years. Unlike competitors that import cacao mass, it has designed taste and aroma directly from the raw-material stage, the starting point of chocolate.
The cacao mass produced at the Yangsan factory is made on newly built equipment and used as a chocolate ingredient. Lotte Wellfood invested about 15 billion won in September last year to install new cacao bean processing equipment on the BTC line. While the previous equipment produced about 1 ton (t) of cacao mass per hour, the new equipment has a maximum hourly capacity (CAPA) of 2.5 t. A Lotte Wellfood official said, "The number of processes has decreased by about 25%, improving management and maintenance efficiency."
The BTC line process begins with washing the cacao beans brought in from overseas production areas and removing foreign matter. After washing, the cacao beans are placed in a hopper (a space that stores a set amount of raw materials and supplies them stably to the next process) and moved to the winnower. In this process, the cacao beans are crushed to separate the cacao nibs (Cacao Nib), used as a chocolate ingredient, from the shell, the cacao shell (Cacao Shell).
The separated cacao nibs undergo simultaneous sterilization and roasting in a roaster. Because the balance of cacao's characteristic bitterness, acidity, and nutty aroma changes depending on the roasting conditions, the plant adjusts detailed conditions to match the raw material's properties. After roasting, the cacao nibs go through a three-stage grinding process, during which the solid raw material turns liquid and cacao mass is produced.
The cacao mass produced this way is used as a key ingredient in Lotte Wellfood's flagship products "Ghana" and "Crunky." As the Yangsan factory is the main production site for "ABC Chocolate," a single ABC Chocolate production line turns out about 860 pieces per minute. Based on that, about 8,800 to 9,000 boxes of ABC Chocolate are produced per day.
Centering on the Yangsan factory's BTC line, Lotte Wellfood manages quality consistency across its chocolate brands. Even ahead of Valentine's Day on the 14th, the approach does not change, though output may increase. Rather than sharply ramping up production to match specific holidays, it is more important to run processes and manage quality according to a year-round schedule.
A Lotte Wellfood official said, "The Yangsan factory's BTC line is like the heart of all Lotte Wellfood chocolate products," adding, "Through the BTC process, we will raise the standard of chocolate in Korea and deliver differentiated taste and quality to consumers."