Lotte Wellfood said on Tuesday that newly introduced cocoa bean processing equipment on the BTC line (cocoa mass production) at its Yangsan plant in South Gyeongsang Province has begun operating. It plans to strengthen its competitiveness as the top chocolate business operator in South Korea through equipment upgrades.

Lotte Wellfood installed the new equipment in September last year after investing about 15 billion won to improve process efficiency and increase production capacity on the Yangsan plant's BTC line.

The BTC line began full-scale operations this month after about a four-month stabilisation period. The company said the number of process steps fell 25 percent from the existing equipment, improving efficiency in management and maintenance, while cocoa mass production capacity rose 150 percent to 2.5 tons per hour from 1 ton per hour.

Lotte Wellfood directly processes cocoa beans to make cocoa mass, a key ingredient in chocolate. The company has produced cocoa mass directly since building the BTC line at the Yangsan plant in 1995. It said the Yangsan plant's BTC line is the only cocoa mass production line owned by a major South Korean company.

Cocoa mass produced on the Yangsan plant's BTC line is used as a key ingredient in all of Lotte Wellfood's chocolate products, including Ghana, Pepero, Mon Cher, Crunky and ABC Chocolate. The company said changes at the ingredient stage have raised quality evenly across all brands.

A Lotte Wellfood official said, "We will provide consumers with differentiated taste and quality through South Korea's only 'Bean to Bar' process that manages everything from ingredients to finished products."