About us

Certa Fides GmbH is the world’s first company providing a Ready-to-Use solution with synchronous image-+ weight analysis for meltdown tests (synonymous: “drip test” or “driptest”) of ice cream at all.

Installation and operational setup of the 1st Ready-to-Use temperature controlled Meltdown Analyser TC1 was successfully conducted in July 2010. Since that time, uncertainty about the meltdown behaviour of ice cream belongs definitely to the past.

History

The roots of the Meltdown Analyser project – and therewith associated of Certa Fides GmbH itselves – goes back to the years between 2003 and 2004 when the Laboratory for Food Process Engineering (Prof. E.-J. Windhab) of the ETH Zurich were conducting research on Low Temperature Extrusion (LTE) process of ice cream. In order to quantify the advantages of the LTE process objectively, Matthias Eisner, Daniel Kiechl, Julian Corsano and Bruno Pfister from the Laboratory of Food Process Engineering developed a measurement system combining image and weight analysis. Due to lack of availability of a system meeting requirements in the market, it was necessary to develop and build up such system from the scratch: the first prototype of the Meltdown Analyser (German: Abschmelztester) was born. It was presented to ice cream industry and based on good feedback, it was decided to marketise the Meltdown Analyser.

After initial investigations in terms of specific needs of the ice cream industry, the first Meltdown Analyser designed for industrial use was developed and presented for the first time to ice cream at Inter-Ice 2008 in Solingen, Germany in November 2008. The Meltdown Analyser B1 was not temperature controlled and it needed external temperature control for standardised measurement conditions. With development and launch of the Meltdown Analyser TC1 in 2010, temperature control has been completely integrated in the Meltdown Analyser. Therefore, meltdown tests can be done at places and rooms which are not temperature controlled itselfes.

Certa Fides GmbH had been founded in October 2008 by Adrian Duerig. In May 2009, Certa Fides GmbH was appointed as a Spin-off company of the ETH Zurich. In 2010, further associates could be won and the first Meltdown Analyser TC1 “was making the step to operational state”.

The second generation of the Meltdown Analyser, MDATC2, was launched in 2019. With MDATC2, it became possible to also watch and record what is happening under the mesh (screen) and on drip pan.