commissary INSIDER - October 2017 - 8

Equipment:

Accuracy, ﬂexibility key
in cake depositing
by Ryan Atkinson

s more and more supermarkets
look off site for their fresh prepared and baked goods, more
commissaries and bakeries are being utilized for cakes and desserts. This has increased the need for commissaries to stay
on top of their cake automation needs.

"So many commissaries are now producing cakes for the instore bakery,"
says Stewart MacPherson, vice president of sales and marketing for Unifiller.
"And it's necessary for them to have
pumps, depositors, decorators and robotics that can automate production for
various benefits."

Accuracy matters
Depositing cake batter or other fillings
requires accuracy on two fronts - hitting the right target, whether it's the
cake pan or tray, and depositing the
right amount of batter. Accurate weight
also helps producers from giving product away.
"There are several challenges when depositing Danish filling," says Eric Riggle,
vice president of Rademaker USA. "First
and foremost is how to minimize waste
and loss due to the fact that Danish filling can be expensive."

Batter and filling consistency can have
a major impact on deposit accuracy as
well as final product quality. As batter
sits in the mixing bowl or hopper waiting
to be deposited, it can get thicker, and
some aeration from the leavening agent
can occur.
"When you start getting air pockets,
that's going to affect a smaller deposit,
particularly because now we have varying specific gravity from one batch to
the next," MacPherson says. "As density
changes, so does specific gravity and
flowability, which will have an impact on
deposit weights."
Specific gravity is determined in the mixing bowl, MacPherson says, by beating
air into the batter to nucleate the gases
released by the leavening system. But
there are ways to maintain and improve
consistency as the batter or filling flows
to the depositor and into the cake pan that
minimize the impact aeration and density
changes may have on the deposit weights.
Unifiller accomplishes this with its Hopper Topper, a gentle transfer pump that
draws batter from the mixing bowl to the
depositor. According to MacPherson, the
pump uses lifting action instead of suction to be gentler on the product. This
produces two benefits: by the time batter enters the depositor's hopper, it has
a smoother consistency, and second, the
system maintains the level of batter in
the hopper from start to finish.
"We use an infrared level sensor that
looks inside the hopper, and we measure
the level of batter within an inch," he
says. "We keep a constant level of batter
in the hopper, which greatly improves
the accuracy of the deposit unlike manually filling the hopper because the weight
of the product will affect the smaller deposit accuracy."

MACHINES LIKE THE UNI-X EXTRUDER PLAY INTO THE NEED FOR VERSATILITY.
PHOTO: UNIFILLER

8 * OCTOBER 2017

commissary INSIDER

For the Mavericks depositor with interchangeable gearwheel and three-roll extruder from Bakon USA, interchangeable
heads are utilized for accurate depositing. Not only can different heads be used
for different doughs, but adjustments
can be made to the speed and dosage
amounts during production, allowing
facilities to make on-the-go changes for
higher accuracy.

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