Improving Scaling Accuracy and Reducing Waste in the Dough Make-Up Stage

Categories: Blog

In today’s fiercely competitive baking industry, precision is not just a luxury, it’s the cornerstone of success. Every efficient step forward can be the difference in avoiding dwindling profits and meeting quality standards required by major QSR chains.

Rethinking Waste in Industrial Baking

Improved scaling accuracy and decreased waste offer massive potential for industrial bakeries. By rethinking common designs, we can limit or remove wasteful designs and processes. This blog covers two specific system improvements to accomplish that goal: mitigating compressed air and saving flour during the bread and bun make-up stage.

Downsides of Compressed Air

Compressed air is common for tasks like cleaning machinery between runs and shaping and scaling dough. However, compressed air loses most of its energy to heat, creating a less energy-efficient system.

But imagine a bakery where compressed air consumption is no longer the norm. This move alone can lead to staggering energy savings of 20% to 50%, slashing operational costs and making your bakery’s carbon footprint that much smaller.

No Compressed Air with 1% Scaling Accuracy

The HBDFlex Accupan Bun Make-up System is now offered with the option of no compressed air requirements while maintaining high scaling accuracy within 1%* over the machine’s lifetime, around 25 years with proper maintenance. The system runs up to 72,000 buns or rolls per hour while featuring 60% fewer moving parts than a volumetric divider, providing reduced maintenance and operational costs.

Elimination of compressed air also leads to more accurate timing by replacing air cylinders with more precise motion control servo timing gates. This leads to ultimate efficiency of 100% filled pans heading to the Proofer and Oven.

* Measured as a standard deviation of the target weight

Save Flour During Moulding

Dusting flour has been a non-negotiable ingredient for managing sticky dough during the make-up process, but you can reclaim or even forgo flour to lower ingredient usage.

Flour Reclaim Systems

Features like the Multi-Vac Flour Reclaim System available on the Accupan Bun Systems by AMF Flex, an AMF Bakery Systems brand, collect and reuse flour from multiple pick points: the zig-zag, panner, moulder and tray tripper. Overall, you’ll use less flour while minimizing downtime since filter cleaning is continuous and does not require a system shutdown to sanitize. A cleaner operating environment without flour dust is also safer for the operators.

Flourless Moulding Technology

The integrated flourless dough ball system is available on the ADD-S Bread Make-up System.

AMF Bakery Systems is the only OEM that can provide an extrusion divider with a complete make-up system from dividing through moulding. The flourless moulding technology available in the ADD-S Bread Make-up System reduces energy usage and simplifies the sanitation process. Additionally, all plastic is now blue for improved food safety, and the full flourless system includes conveyors with an air-drying system that does not use compressed air.

The ADD-S Bread Make-up System is the highest speed bread divider available with new sanitary design, thanks to AMF’s innovative Flourless Moulding Technology, improving on what has been the industry standard for over 30 years.

Sustainable Design for the Next Era of Baking

Removing compressed air and saving flour makes baking operations more sustainable and efficient. And the opportunities for efficiency don’t stop there. They extend throughout your bakery operations from sheeting and moulding to panning and sustainable ovens and beyond.

Ready to Transform Your Bakery’s Operations? Contact Us Today!

Don’t let scaling inaccuracies and wasted resources hold your bakery back. Your journey to precision, sustainability, and success starts with a simple conversation. Contact us today, and let’s begin the transformation of your bakery.