Baking & Snack - March 2021 - 57

EQUIPMENT
Artisan Bread

for Artisan

Digital controls, simple tweaks and enhanced
equipment design better mimic the classic
methods for creating Old World products.

by Dan Malovany

When Netflix's DVDs-by-mail service became all the
rage, the baking industry still considered artisan breads
an emerging market. Fast forward from 2000 to a decade
ago when streaming came online, and these European-style
baked goods had established their foothold in grocery instore bakeries.
Today, artisan bread and rolls have become an anchor
along the supermarket perimeter and even a mainstay on
menus in casual and quick-service restaurants across the
nation. That's because a new generation of technological and digital advances now enable specialty wholesalers
and even traditional craft bakers to supply the broader
market with a greater array of Old World fresh and frozen products.
" In this industry, you constantly need to improve, " observed John Giacoio, vice president of sales, Rheon USA.
" The equipment from 10 years ago was good for its time,
but with feedback from our customers, Rheon has reduced
product waste, improved quality and expanded automation
with our new equipment. As our customers have become
more sophisticated in what they want to produce, we have
had to keep up with them. If you can stay ahead of the bakers' requests, it's more fun by being able to show bakers new
and improved ways to make truly artisan breads. "
Automating the art of baking has come a long way in a
relatively short time in the world of technology, but many
improvements - big and small - provide a plethora of
practical savings.
Take trimming dough from the edges of dough sheets,

for instance, that previously turned into wasteful scrap or
was laboriously collected as rework for later use in a future
batch. A simple fix saves a ton of labor.
" Previously, when handling an artisan-style dough, it
needed to go back into the mixer, " said Nick Magistrelli,
vice president of sales, Rademaker USA. " Now it is possible
to incorporate the reworked dough directly back into the
sheeting system. This allows for improved efficiencies and
reduced labor costs associated with handling the dough. "
Rheon strives to reduce trim by creating a more relaxed
dough from the start of the make-up process. With a stressfree divider, Mr. Giacoio said, production lines now offer
far more flexibility to create a wider range of products without sacrificing quality.
Overall capacity has expanded as nimble makeup systems began to gently turn out a greater volume of specialty
baked goods without damaging or degassing the dough,
noted Cyril Munsch, global sales director, Mecatherm.
A decade ago, a large production line pumped out an average of 2 tons, or 4,000 lbs of dough per hour. Now its lines
turn out as much as 5 tons, or around 10,000 lbs hourly, by
employing larger pans on wider conveyors that can carry a
greater volume of baked goods, but at slower speeds that reduce the wear-and-tear on equipment. Mecatherm's modular lines, he said, allow bakers to bolt on additional proofer
or oven systems to more than double an operation's output.
Market forces also have driven the push for automation.
Mr. Munsch pointed out that today's artisan products are
more affordable than they were years ago. To control costs,

Today's artisan bread
lines rely on historical
data, machine learning
and even artificial intelligence to improve the
overall process.
AMF Bakery Systems

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Baking & Snack - March 2021

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