The machinery about which I am writing is found in the confectionery industry, but it is also generally used throughout the food industry and some other areas that produce items that need to be wrapped and packed for distribution. It just happens that much of my working life was spent in the confectionery industry. Similar machinery operates in the pharmaceutical industry, is used for wrapping and handling books, for wrapping blocks of fuel and for packing tea and other items. Some of the robots described are used in the glass industry, loading drinking glasses direct from hot moulding plants. They are used to load filled bottles into cases in the drinks business or shampoo for chemical manufacturers. Other industries, for example the textile industry, used machinery designed for other purposes (such as weaving), before the development of packaging machines, that worked on comparable principles. Some of the mechanisms in all of this machinery possibly have their ancestry in the great cathedral clock mechanisms from as early as the fifteenth century. Just because this book is mainly illustrated by reference to chocolate bars and sweets does not mean that that is the only application, nor does it lessen the ingenuity applied in the designs of these machines or their importance in the modem world.

One of three focus reports providing detailed market analyses and research forecasts for the European confectionary equipment market. The market for each product category is analysed for 1991 and 1992, with forecasts to 1997, in UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the Rest of Western Europe. Competitor market shares are analysed by product category and by country/region. Leading suppliers are also profiled.