Gulfood Manufacturing 2014: 9th-11th November, Dubai, UAE

Baker Perkins is highlighting its process and product innovation capability for the confectionery, bread, biscuit, snack and cereal industries at Gulfood Manufacturing in the Dubai World Trade Centre, UAE, from November 9 to 11. Baker Perkins will be located in the British Pavilion stand S-F29.

Confectionery

Baker Perkins is the acknowledged market leader in cooking and starchless depositing systems for confectionery, making a wide selection, including hard candy, lollipops, toffees, caramels, fudge, fondant, and jellies. Baker Perkins’ one-shot ServoForm™ depositing systems can combine up to four components into a single candy as stripes, layers or random patterns; with hard or soft centre fills; and with virtually limitless colour and flavour variations to bring variety and eye-catching appeal. There is the potential for far greater interest and variety than traditional methods such as die forming, starch mogul or cut and wrap.

There is a focus at Gulfood on the application of deposited hard candy and jellies to carry over-the-counter medications or dietary supplements. Functional, and especially medicated, confectionery is not new but the accuracy and hygiene of modern cooking and depositing techniques has broadened the range of potential applications.

The functional sector ranges from boosting the intake of essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fibre and protein to adding beneficial supplements such as folic acid and Omega-3 to the diet. This sector also extends to sports nutrition where confectionery is ideally suited to portable and convenient energy and recovery products. Medicated products include ingredients such as antiseptics, menthol and eucalyptus oil to alleviate the symptoms of minor ailments such as coughs, colds, sore throats and nasal congestion. As well as being more palatable than the alternatives of tablets or capsules, confectionery also overcomes a psychological barrier caused by the association of these delivery systems with illness and medical intervention.

Of the technologies available to the medicated and functional confectionery sectors, depositing is undoubtedly the most appropriate because of the hygiene, accuracy and product quality it offers. Additionally, the process adheres to the principles of GMP and is readily capable of validation to FDA/EMEA standards.

Bread

Mixing and forming systems from Baker Perkins enable high-output tin and pan bread plant bakeries to meet increasing market demand for high quality premium bread. Gentle dough handling arising from innovative design, combined with the latest control technology, produce bread at new levels of consistency and excellence. This generation of machinery is the result of continual collaboration with bakers, backed by Baker Perkins’ process knowledge based on a century of involvement with the industry. Throughout the world, experience in tough production environments shows that the objectives of improved consistent quality, reduced ingredient costs and a clean label can all be achieved simultaneously.

The complete fully-integrated Tweedy™ dough mixing system is automated from ingredient weighing to dough delivery to the divider, virtually eliminating routine operator intervention and inconsistency. The Baker Perkins pressure-vacuum mixing process is key to cost-saving and quality-enhancing benefits including increased yield, improved crumb colour and softness, longer shelf life and a reduction in ascorbic acid.

At the forming stage, the Baker Perkins Accurist2.1™ divider, conical rounder and Multitex4™ moulder minimize stress and damage to the dough through gentle handling. The integrity of the dough structure is preserved, giving a loaf with higher value and consumer appeal. There is an increase in loaf volume, better colour, increased resilience and greater softness. This high speed, high quality and low cost process is free of flour dust. Bakeries are clean, production is non-stop and maintenance is easy.

Cereal and Snack

Baker Perkins twin-screw extruders and co-extrusion systems offer continued product innovation for extruded and co-extruded snack and cereal products. The SBX Master™ extruder plays a key part in the modular Snack Master™ and Cereal Master™ concepts, which enables a line to be extended with additional process units to broaden the range of products that can be made.

Companies can enter the market with an uncomplicated extrusion system making standard, direct expanded products and then extend the system as business expands to make a full portfolio of high specification, added-value snacks or cereals. These can include whole grain / multigrain brands; sweet or savoury filled pillows with intriguing shapes, textures and surface patterns; plus high added-value sticks, pillows, bars and bites in plain, shredded or filled forms. A standard line usually consists of an extruder, dryer and flavouring system. Special dies and cutters, co-extrusion equipment, dryers, fryers, ovens and coolers can be added to form versatile plants. New products can be introduced quickly, and short-life products become a profitable option.

Today’s sophisticated Baker Perkins twin-screw extruders are designed to produce consistent high quality products at efficiency levels that minimize downtime and waste. They are automatically controlled using parameters stored in pre-configured user recipes. The ability to change the recipes is usually restricted to production managers or process technologists; product inconsistency caused by operator intervention in the process is eliminated.

Automatic start-up and shut-down is crucial to smooth and efficient operation. Machines are automatically sequenced from warm up to production, optimized to minimize time and material waste. There is no operator involvement, and therefore no opportunity for error. The shut-down sequence is similarly automated to reduce waste and cleaning time. As well as extruded breakfast cereals, Baker Perkins also offers systems where the grains are cooked in a rotary steam cooker.

Biscuits, Cookies and Crackers

Baker Perkins customers take advantage of the widest available range of equipment to produce biscuits, cookies and crackers. Baker Perkins delivers complete, automatic production plants that include mixing, dough forming, baking and cream sandwiching technology; they harness the latest engineering and control expertise to maximize performance while making machines easier to operate, maintain and clean.

Baker Perkins supplies machinery and systems for producing every conceivable type of soft and hard biscuit, cookie and cracker, including added-value options.

Baker Perkins uses its capabilities to design equipment that meets the specific needs of the industry, and imaginatively solves issues such as better weight control, reduced maintenance and easier use. As well as offering 'best-in-class' equipment for each key process stage, there is constant development of new end products and processes. Technical excellence and innovation are firmly grounded in unrivalled process knowledge and engineering expertise won during 100 years involvement in the biscuit industry throughout the world. Because Baker Perkins supply full lines they understand the complete process, providing unparalleled backing to customers from design, build and commissioning to complete lifetime support. Baker Perkins has the largest installed base and the greatest depth of resources. Expertise is located at Peterborough in the UK, and at Grand Rapids in Michigan, USA, the acknowledged market leader for production of cookie and soft dough biscuits.

Source: Baker Perkins