Fast-paced bakery facilities often process a variety of delicate products prone to damage. Soft bread, bars, and packaged cookies are particularly vulnerable when mishandled.
Conveyors are vital in minimizing damage, adapting to diverse product mixes, and ensuring efficient production flow. Selecting a conveyor that meets a processor’s unique needs helps them meet demands and maintain high-quality standards.
How to Choose the Right Bakery Conveyor
How should processors evaluate conveyors for their facility? Factors to consider when assessing conveyors include the following:
Product Type and Mix: Bakery products change significantly throughout production, moving from the ingredient stage to raw dough, prepared product, baked product, and packaging. Where will conveyors be placed throughout the process? Determining that will help with choosing the best belts and components.
Adjusting to multiple products and recipes is important for maintaining productivity and meeting changing consumer demands. A versatile conveyor system can help streamline production by allowing seamless transitions between various product types without compromising efficiency or quality.
Production Volume and Uptime: The dimensions of the conveyor will need to accommodate the flow of products based on production capacity. For example, a wider belt may be necessary for higher volumes to ensure efficient processing and minimal downtime.
Choosing a reliable conveyor system that consistently delivers on uptime can help ensure smooth operations and reduce the risk of costly disruptions to production schedules.
Sanitation Requirements: Never before has there been such a spotlight on sanitation. A sanitary design avoids harmful bacteria and ensures allergens such as nuts and gluten are kept separate from products that need to meet non-allergenic requirements.
Conveyors must have easy-to-clean surfaces and components to minimize contamination risks and ensure compliance with BEMA design standards.
It’s imperative to opt for materials and designs that are food-safe, resistant to corrosion, and capable of preventing bacterial growth. This reduces downtime and contamination risks by allowing quick washdowns with minimal effort. Features such as positive drive belts, modular belt designs, and easily accessible components can all contribute to more thorough and efficient cleaning processes to maintain food safety.
Space Constraints:
Bakeries with limited space may require elevating solutions or creative configurations to maximize footprint utilization. Specially designed conveyors can help meet production needs in confined spaces by navigating around processing equipment, facility walls, columns, and doorways.
Tight Transfers and Integrations: Proper connections between equipment prevent product damage during handling and maintain overall efficiency throughout the processing line. Conveyor system designs often incorporate retractors or other specialized components at various production stages for smooth transitions.
Ease of Maintenance:Regular maintenance checks ensure minimal downtime and efficient production. This includes inspecting belts for wear, lubricating moving parts as needed, and addressing any issues promptly before they escalate into more significant problems that could disrupt operations.
Evaluating Types of Food Processing Conveyors
A wide range of conveyor systems are designed specifically for bakery processing applications. Each offers unique benefits that make it suitable for different stages of production or particular product types.
Belt Conveyors: Most common bakery conveyor solutions are equipped with positive drive belts. These help with sanitation because they have fewer moving parts, smooth surfaces, and less horsepower. They also feature tight transfers to prevent damage during handling.
Belt conveyors are ideal for many bakery processing applications, including:
Conveyors designed to handle raw dough (buns, biscuits, bread): There are vertical lift conveyors with positive drives that efficiently elevate raw dough 90 degrees to a chunker or divider.
Positive-drive flat belts also transfer raw dough between equipment.
Some conveyors are designed to transfer large volumes across long distances with no loss. They feature an open frame that allows for fast and thorough cleaning.
Bars/packaged bakery items: Some conveyors use specialized timing sequences to orient and alight bars, individual pancakes, and other bakery items for packaging purposes.
Modular belt conveyors have an open design that enhances airflow for faster product cooling. They efficiently manage items at different temperatures, including those needing to be cooled after par-baking.
Retractors and curved conveyors help to ensure the alignment, positioning, and orientation of bakery items during the processing or packaging stages. This maintains product quality, prevents damage, and facilitates efficient production workflows.
Bucket and Incline Conveyors: Bucket and incline conveyors are common in the baking industry. They can elevate dough or baked goods to mixers, dividers/chunkers, ovens, tall equipment, or a platform/mezzanine.
Vibratory Conveyors: Vibratory conveyors are used mainly for sprinkling toppings over products or mixing/blending recipes of granola-type products. They provide gentle handling and precise control over the distribution process, ensuring consistent results every time.
Conveyors Aren’t One-Size-Fits-All
Choosing the right bakery conveyor system for a facility’s unique needs requires careful consideration and is crucial to ensuring efficiency, product safety, and regulatory compliance.
Work with a supplier that can provide customized solutions. Look for an experienced partner with engineering expertise to design innovative solutions and a willingness to meet the facility’s exact needs.
Cory Williams is a key accounts manager for PFI, part of the Grote Family of Brands. He leads PFI’s efforts in the snack and baking industries.
