How many times have you been approached by a student or Girl Scout at a grocery store selling candy bars for a fundraiser? If it was for a value-priced caramel or chocolate bar, it was probably bearing the name World’s Finest Chocolate.

Well known for their fundraising opportunities, World’s Finest Chocolate is a family-owned company with more than 60 years of experience in manufacturing chocolate, candy bars and other related products. They are one of only nine American companies that manufacture chocolate directly from the cocoa bean. Dedicated personnel use modern machinery and the finest ingredients to make consistently delicious chocolates. The company is known for its consistency, quality, versatility and dependability.

World’s Finest Chocolate utilizes state-of-the-art technology and high volume production efficiencies. Among the process equipment used to manufacture World’s Finest Chocolate, a thermal fluid heater and related accessories from Los Angeles-based Parker Boiler play a key role in one of World’s Finest Chocolate’s best-selling products, the Continental Almonds. The chocolate-covered almonds are packaged in a one pound gift box. Back in the mid ’80s, Douglas W. Anderson, a sales manager at Parker Boiler, was approached by a long-time Parker OEM — Sandvik Jahn of Huntington, England — for a Parker HT1008 thermal fluid heater and related accessories to go with the Sandvik Jahn almond roaster. After fabrication, delivery and installation of its equipment and systems, Parker usually does not hear from its customers for many, many years, and such as it was for the almond roaster. For Parker, as the saying goes, “No news is good news.”

Years later, Michael Leeming, sales manager for Parker Boiler, decided to contact the company to see how the Parker equipment was operating after a World’s Finest Chocolate fundraiser event with his kids. After a flurry of internal emails, it was discovered that the original purchaser, Vice President of Engineering Rich Kessell, was still with the company. According to Kessell, the heater has been in service and is still running strong after 25 years. He credits the longevity to the technology of thermal fluid as opposed to the potentially corrosive fluids of glycol, water or steam vapor. According to the company, the only service done to the heater was a couple of burner cleanings.

Thermal Liquid Heating

Thermal liquid heating is a specialized form of process heating that utilizes the forced circulation of special heating medium as a liquid. In many types of process heating, high temperature, rather than high pressure, is essential where heat, not vapor or steam per se, is required. Thermal liquid systems generally can be used at high temperature without a corresponding high pressure.

The Parker liquid-tube design incorporates a heater built for reliability and ease of maintenance.  The all double-welded, bent-steel liquid-tube design allows for the continuous expansion and contraction to which the heater must be subjected without damage. The double-welded construction eliminates the problems of rolled tubes, ferrell fits and retainer clips common with alternate designs.

Thermal liquids at advanced temperatures are so thin that only the finest welding can contain the fluid without leakage. Because all fluids will burn in the ambient temperature of the gas flame, this leakage can be serious. A staggered tubing design provides a 10-pass self-baffled heating surface to increase efficiency. The ASME tube bundle is flexible and offers a long service life with a warranty against thermal shock.

 So the next time a young scout or intramural sports player offers to sell you a chocolate bar, know that thermal fluid heating is helping World’s Finest Chocolate make the world a little sweeter.

For more information from Parker Boiler Co., Los Angeles, call 323-727-9800 or visit www.parkerboiler.com. For more information from World's Finest Chocolate, visit www.worldsfinestchocolate.com.