The Sovda Precision Silo. All images courtesy of Sovda.

Professional roastery equipment maker Sovda is launching the Precision Silo, a 4,800-kilogram-capacity green coffee storage, loading and blending machine.

Divided into eight chambers, each with 600-kilogram capacity, the Precision Silo system includes a Sovda Lift pneumatic loader capable of transferring 40 kilos per minute, or an entire pallet’s worth of green coffee, into the silo within about 20 minutes.

Loading is slightly slower into the Precision Silo Plus, which also weighs coffee as it enters and records weight data over time for inventory and production record-keeping.

Both models are able to dispense 70-kilo batches within about five minutes. Both can also be controlled through built-in touchscreens or remotely via a laptop or tablet, the latter options allowing users to prepare green coffee batches without leaving their stations during a roast batch. 

Automation features include dispensing specific quantities from multiple chambers for pre-roast blending.

“The Precision Silo is less about saving time and more about allowing roasters to use that time to focus on roasting,” Sovda Marketing Manager Alexandra Mosher told Daily Coffee News. “A roaster who is working efficiently on a busy roasting day finds themselves juggling a lot between weighing and preparing their next batch while their current batch is roasting. With the Precision Silo, the roaster can stay focused on their batch without multitasking green coffee scooping and weighing.”

Users can control the Precision silo through a built-in touchscreen or remotely through a laptop or tablet.

The mechanized silo and automations are also designed to reduce the repetitive manual labor of scooping and weighing green coffee.

“You don’t need to have the build of a linebacker to be a roaster with the Precision Silo,” Mosher said. “That’s a bit cheeky, but the premise remains that currently roasting coffee is a repetitive, physically demanding job. If you’re someone with a smaller stature, you’ll only be able to work for so long before you’ve run your body dry, which is unfortunate because the craft of roasting should be available to anyone who is passionate about coffee.”

A Precision Silo product page has been live on the Sovda website for about a year. Orders for new equipment commenced in September 2024, following the installation of the first unit at Black & White Coffee Roasters in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Precision Silo adds to a growing line of light industrial coffee equipment offered by Portland, Oregon-based Sovda. The company introduced its first green coffee sorting machine, called the Pearl Mini, in 2018. That was followed by a weigh-and-fill machine in 2022 and a blending machine introduced this year. 

Mosher said Sovda has worked closely with Black & White on fine-tuning and troubleshooting the new Precision Silo line while prepping the wider launch.

“They had a roaster who got injured from repetitive motion, sometimes scooping thousands of pounds of coffee into the roasters daily. They realized that if they wanted to make their roastery more accessible and not burn out their roasters quickly, they needed a solution,” said Mosher. “I know that Black & White is not alone in this. There are other stories of roasters getting ‘roaster elbow,’ etc. We hope the Precision Silo will protect roasters everywhere and allow them to stay at the jobs they love so much.”

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