Baking & Snack - November 2013 - 88

COOKIES AND CRACKERS

heat ensures a proper bake. Topos Mondial's hybrid oven
combines two different heat types during the baking
cycle along the length of the oven: cyclothermic at the
beginning of the oven and direct heat at the end. "This
creates a better baking result for some types of cookies," said Damian Morabito, president of the Pottstown,
PA-based company. "For certain formulations if you use
only one type of heat, the cookies can be either too dry
or too chewy. The Hybrid oven can also maximize the
production throughput for a given length of oven."

Avoiding cross-contamination
While the entire food industry scrambles to meet new
food safety regulations, cookie and cracker manufacturers have known the woes of dealing with allergens for
quite some time. "Cookie and cracker production environments are very sensitive to allergens," Mr. Morabito
said. "Some cookies have peanut butter; some don't.
Some have nuts; some don't."
A stress on sanitation is a relatively new concept for baking because the oven is typically the kill step
for pathogens. Allergens, however, must be
avoided from ingredient handling all the way
through packaging. "You can't kill allergens," Mr. Graham said. "There is no
other way to deal with allergens other than segregation or sanitation."
Sanitation is vital for companies
producing frozen or raw dough
products. "When you sell frozen
dough, consumers sometimes eat
it raw even though the package
says not to," Mr. Wilkinson said.
Because of the lack of a baking
step during production, pathogens
as well as allergens become part of
the sanitation challenge.
Cookies and crackers are packed
with all sorts of allergens, including
dairy, eggs, gluten, nuts and seeds.
To minimize cross contamination,
bakers must rely on proper production scheduling and need equipment that is easy to clean to reduce
costly downtime. "Equipment
design is No. 1," Mr. van Laar
said. "It must be cleanable in an
acceptable period of time."
To do that, equipment suppliers have gone on the offensive with
Planetary mixers can handle a variety of cookie doughs with
the right mixing tools in place.
Tonelli Group

/ Baking & Snack / November 2013

sanitation by designing mixers, dough feeders, portioning equipment, belts and ovens that are fully washdowncapable with open-frame design, tool-less removal and
clean-in-place (CIP) capabilities.
Baker Perkins' TruClean machines are designed to be
sanitation-friendly. "They stay clean," Mr. Graham said.
"There are no surfaces where debris can accumulate.
Everything is easily visible and easy to reach for inspecting and cleaning." The company applied its TruClean
design to moulders, wirecutters and mixers.
Open-frame design is another element that makes
equipment more accessible for maintenance and cleaning. To accommodate this, Tonelli Group builds its planetary mixer with no ledges to collect water or debris.
Unifiller Systems' open design depositors allow
operators to visually inspect product contact surfaces.
According to Martin Riis, product manager at Unifiller,
Delta, BC, the company strives to build every machine
with the fewest number of parts possible, which equates
to less maintenance and easier cleaning.
Reading's approach to sanitation also focuses on
visibility. Beyond meeting OSHA requirements
for safety, Reading believes the concept of openframe design can provide peace of
mind. "We believe
that what is seen
is cleaned and
maintained," said
Shawn Moye, executive director
of sales, Reading
Bakery Systems.

Baking & Snack - November 2013

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