FDBusiness.com

GEA has recently developed a new spiral proofing and freezing system for the production of breakfast products, such as croissants and pain au chocolat, that has the ability to double output and so solve a major problem for bakeries.

Advances in up-stream production techniques – mixing, laminating, cutting and forming – have allowed bakeries to make dough for croissants and pain au chocolat at ever increasing rates with some factories able to operate at a throughput of up to six tonnes of product per hour. Until now, however, the overall production rate has been limited by the ability of proofers to operate at full capacity while maintaining product quality.

New Development

A new development from GEA, however, has solved that problem ushering in a new era of high production with the top quality bakery products customers expect. The new GEA S-Tec spiral proofer from GEA has the ability to proof bakery products with a production rate of up to six tonnes per hour, twice the capacity of most existing spiral proofing systems, thereby matching the capacity of the upstream processes.

The GEA S-Tec spiral proofer has achieved this by using a completely new air distribution system that, rather than blowing warm air with fans into the spiral, defuses it equally, at low pressure, throughout the machine thereby maintaining the perfect proofing environment throughout, eliminating hot or cold areas and achieving a uniform humidity. In this way the system is able to maintain the whole proofing area in accordance with each customer’s recipe.

Difficult to Achieve

Mathieu Nouhin from the company says that increasing the throughput to this level, while maintaining the highest possible product quality, was difficult to achieve. “To achieve the required throughput rate the S-Tec spiral proofer has a twin drum with 40 tiers on each drum representing 2,300 meters of conveyor belt,” he explains. “It’s 21 meters long, 11 meters wide and 8 meters high, so using an ordinary air flow system it would have been impossible to control the environment within such a large machine accurately. The new system, however, controls the temperature within one degree and maintains a constant humidity to allow the products to rise homogenously and achieve the texture, appearance and taste our customers expect.”

On exiting the GEA S-Tec spiral proofer the risen croissant and pain au chocolat are transferred directly to the freezer, also provided by GEA, and on for distribution to local bakeries for the real home-made taste consumers love.

For further sales information contact: David Hallifax, GEA frozen food sales support, on Tel: (Office) +44 1263 586449; (Mobile) +44 7796 148881.