Cocoa beans or nuts generally contain various impurities such as dust, sand, stones, pieces of metal or wood, paper and so on. Before starting processing, it is necessary to remove all foreign bodies and have the raw material perfectly clean in order not to compromise the quality of the finished product and to protect the equipment for subsequent processes from excessive wear and tear.The cocoa beans or nuts are fed into the product loading hopper, sieved on a screen to separate multiple cocoa beans and coarse foreign matter from the raw material and passed through a deferrization station to remove metal particles. The product is then conveyed to the pit removal station, where it passes through the winnower, which removes the lower specific weight fractions with a fast current of air. The cleaned product is sent to the roasting system or stored in special containers for further processing.The PFC series cleaning system has a compact design; however it is possible to install the various processing stations on different levels, in order to obtain cascade passages thus avoiding boosting.The single parts are easily accessible and can be removed and disassembled for easy cleaning and maintenance.The system is managed by a control panel on which regulations for a proper functioning can be set. The operator’s intervention is consequently limited to feeding the product hopper with sacks, big-bags or monitoring of continuous systems and an occasional check of the various processing stations.