Expanding your bakery business starts with investing in the right equipment for the job. Your business cannot reach its full potential without the most advanced baking equipment that will maximize your day-to-day efficiency.

Oven manufacturers are rolling out a number of time-saving and efficiency-enhancing features. Revent’s latest innovation is the round oven, which is groundbreaking in both shape and characteristics. By creating a round chamber, Revent made the oven slimmer and, at the same time, more powerful. It scores high in all important aspects such as baking quality, footprint and energy.
The round chamber together with an intelligent 3-layered glass, fewer heat bridges and modern insulation leads to a minimum of energy waste. It uses less water and energy for baking, and the total life cycle energy consumption is minimized with fewer parts, less material and lower weight, creating less handling in the recycle process.

MIWE presents the next generation of rack oven, MIWE roll-in e+ version 2, which is extremely popular on the North American market. "We are proud that we are well-known here and have gained a well-respected reputation in the marketplaces of Canada and the US," says Harry Jacoby, president of MIWE America LLC, together with Ben Garisto, president of MIWE Canada Inc.

New developments for the MIWE condo include a proofing cabinet that has been completely redesigned in line with the principles of hygienic design, with a rounded stainless steel inner chamber with no superfluous grooves and edges. This feature is also available for the MIWE econo. Touch control MIWE TC was also introduced for the MIWE condo with a flat and easy-to-clean glass display. And finally, the new door design of the MIWE condo can be easily locked into place for cleaning purposes, and the interior side can also be easily washed. The baking chamber is also protected from any cleaning water running in.

From Wiesheu, the Dibas 64S is an innovative baking oven with a sliding door. The door slides sideways into the housing, so it saves space and ensures security. Other features include a hygienic baking chamber with no corners or edges (making it easy to clean) and a new baking chamber with ideal air flow for even baking results.

Capitalizing on market trends

New equipment also can help you leverage current marketplace trends. Pretzels, for instance, are enjoying an upswing in demand, and WP Bakery Group addresses this marketplace need with a new addition to its family, WP Riehle, a leading producer of German quality lye applicators, deep frying solutions, tray cleaning and continuous deep frying.

In addition, WP Bakery Group offers the Winkler Admiral, a robust volumetric roll divider. The welded steel plate construction provides the Admiral with the ability to operate 24/7 in demanding production cycles, such as frozen doughs and bagel plants. Of note, WP Bakery Group has taken over full operations of Winkler USA within the past year. “We are now all integrated as one team,” says Patricia Kennedy, president of WP Bakery Group USA. “This integration brings us a lot of technical expertise on staff.”

Pizza is another hot trend in the marketplace, and Picard features the latest advancements in pizza ovens. Picard addresses this marketplace need with the Spitfire Pizza Oven and the Unique LP-200 Stone Conveyor Oven for pizzas. The latter is a compact oven built to maximize available space and features a black, polished, natural stone conveyor on the entire length of the baking chamber, with variable speed control. The Spitfire Pizza Oven is a continuous baking oven with direct fire radiant heat. The Spitfire bakes at 575 F for fast delicious pizzas.

Americans spend an average of $30 billion a year on pizza and consume an average of 23 lb per year. Bread bakers need to take note of this. On average, a one lb loaf of bread sells for $2. For a few extra dollars spent on ingredients and toppings, that loaf of bread can be turned into a pizza and sold for roughly $12.

Pizza and bread make a natural combination and throughout history, pizza makers have started out as bread bakers who upsell their products through the addition of toppings, says John Arena, owner of Metro Pizza in Las Vegas, NV, and professor of History and Culture of Pizza at UNLV.

Ask your regular customers and sample various pizzas to figure out what will sell best at your bakery and bring back the most profit. Then go with it. “The best pizza is the pizza that you like, the pizza you grew up with,” Arena says.

Improvements in scaling accuracy

For improved scaling, OHAUS Corporation introduced the Valor 7000 line of compact food service scales. Designed for restaurants, bakeries, foodservice and other culinary areas requiring fast operation and flexibility, the Valor 7000 scales provide a variety of standard features to improve the efficiency and accuracy of food weighing.

Valor 7000 offers a less than one second stabilization time to provide unmatched throughput. Touchless sensors in the front and back of the scale can be programmed to perform a variety of functions and provide touch-free operation, promoting a hygienic workspace and reducing the chance of cross contamination. Dual displays with bright backlights located in the front and back of the scale allow two operators to share one scale and are easy to read from a distance in retail applications.

Automation innovations

At Bloemhof Inc., the Express 300S high-speed bun moulder is a new innovation for artisan bakeries, retail and wholesale bakeries and central commissaries. The new equipment can mould up to 12,000 rolls per hour and reduces labor costs with streamlined production. The unique design allows the machine to be fed directly from a single or multi-pocket divider (up to eight pockets). Dough pieces are sorted into two rows for efficient and versatile production. The moulder can produce bolillos, finger rolls, sub and hot dog rolls, bread and bagel sticks, mini baguettes, pan breads and pretzels, and artisan breads and baguettes.

Bakon USA Food Equipment features the innovative Drop TT table top depositor, a table top gearwheel depositor for the production of soft batter products like macarons, eclairs, choux, cupcakes and muffins. Key features are that it is compact, easy to clean, accurate, and features a color touchscreen (English, French and Spanish) with a hopper capacity of 50 lbs. The machine will deposit two trays per minute, depending on the product.