F’Real Foods and A&B Die Casting create a perfect mix of engineering and aesthetics.
F’Real Foods Inc. makes it possible to whip up your own milkshake, smoothie, or frozen cappuccino in less than a minute from real ingredients — real milk, real ice cream, real fruit — at the push of a button. F’Real designs and builds innovative self-serve blending machines that can be found at convenience stores, college and universities, theaters, and military bases throughout the United States and Canada. So, if you’re dreaming of a chocolate malt at 2 am, you can make it a reality.
F’Real Foods first approached A&B Die Casting with a new design for the machine component that holds and lifts the frozen milkshake cup into the blending mechanism.
A&B Die Casting capitalizes on innovation in high technologies, powerful flexibility, and inexhaustible engineering know-how to not just help customers improve their bottom line, but cross the line to new dimensions in quality and service.
To make sure each F’Real milkshake machine works flawlessly in thousands of locations, A&B was tasked with three key criteria for the design:
1. Produce parts efficiently and economically.
2. Create an aesthetically pleasing design reminiscent of old-time milkshake cups.
3. Maintain dimensional stability to work flawlessly in an automated machine.
A&B engineers worked closely with F’Real engineering staff to review the proposed one-piece design. After analysis, A&B recommended an assembly of three die castings that were each more stable dimensionally than the one-piece design. For the attractive metallic finish, A&B did some searching to find a ceramic coating that gave a perfect retro look of brushed stainless steel to the die castings.
• Make a product that is better than you imagined
• Save money with a design that is efficient to produce
• Get a quality product that maintains dimensionally stability in demanding environments