Baking & Snack - November 2017 - 77

EQUIPMENT
Artisan Technology

MIMICKING HANDMADE
While looking to scale up production, artisan bakers may be wary of
losing the human touch. Today's equipment can alleviate those fears.
by Charlotte Atchley

Artisan breads are having a moment. These crusty breads
with their open cell structures hit all the major trends
consumers are looking for: cleaner ingredient lists and an
aura of being handmade. Each piece is different. These
breads require long fermentation times and aren't made in
a factory ... or are they?
With growing demand, artisan bread producers will
find themselves needing to scale up their production if
they haven't already. With the latest technology, though,
these breads can be run on a commercial line without
sacrificing the integrity people expect from a loaf of ciabatta or a baguette. These breads, however, do not scale
up the same as conventional pan bread.
"Artisan doughs, especially various types of organic
doughs, have very different characteristics from more
traditional bread doughs," said Ken Johnson, president,
Gemini Bakery Equipment/KB Systems. "Stickiness and
longer rest times are the more challenging issue."
Even what is considered high throughput isn't the same.
"When you talk to the white pan bread guys, they
talk in terms of 200 and 250 loaves a minute," said John
Giacoio, vice-president, sales, Rheon USA. "We don't
talk in those kinds of speeds because we are handling the
dough more gently than a typical divider and moulder,
but we still talk in terms of tonnage."
These doughs also contain a lot of water. The long

fermentation times don't lend themselves to high-speed
production, and the gassy dough doesn't respond well to
aggressive dividing and moulding. And then there's uniformity. Unlike other commercially produced products,
artisan breads need to look unique. While automation
typically equates uniformity, that's not the case here.
"The challenge is always mimicking a manual or semiautomated process - to be fully automated and make it
look authentic," said David Moline, sales and marketing
manager, Moline Machinery. "Oftentimes you want it to
look like it was handmade, so when you're talking about
scaling up a production that isn't using a fully continuous system, that would probably be the No. 1 challenge,
mimicking the intricacies that make it unique on an automated line."
With the latest technology and the right expansion
plan, artisan bakers can increase production with automated equipment and still deliver the same authentic
quality their consumers have come to expect.

The latest innovation in
artisan technology has
resulted in equipment so
gentle that, in some cases,
machines treat dough more
gently than human hands.
Rondo Inc.

Strategies for expansion
Scaling up artisan bread production requires more than
simply buying bigger and faster equipment. Bakers have
to work around gentle handling of the dough that prevents production from moving too fast. Luckily, there are
ways to avoid sacrificing the finished product quality.

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Baking & Snack - November 2017

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