Baking & Snack - April 2005 - 56

PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

ᮡ Here are just a few of more than 50 nozzles
that this manufacturer has available for its
depositors, which make them capable of performing many different tasks.
UNIFILLER SYSTEMS INC.

that handles 3/8-in. particulates
such as chocolate chips. The pumps
can even deposit larger particulates
such as raisins, because they can
compress, but chocolate chips will
smear into the dough if they are
larger, he said.
Processors looking for cookies with larger particulates may
want to consider a cookie depositor from another manufacturer
that uses a double-screw system.
According to the vice-president
of engineering and R&D for this
manufacturer, its depositor is
designed to handle larger cookie
inclusions. The only damage it
does to the big chocolate chips
or inclusions is during portioning, performed using a guillotine
knife. "If you want a 2-oz cookie,
the machine cuts the dough off
whether or not it's halfway through
a chocolate chip," he said.
However, he added that this is
not generally a problem, and customers who want to show off the
inclusions in their cookies usually
desire this system. "A wire-cutter
will smooth a thin layer of dough

58 / BAKING & SNACK / April 2005

over the particulates, and they don't
show as well," he said. Yet the hallmark of this machine, according to
the vice-president of engineering
and R&D, is its accuracy, which is
generally ±0.5%.
Both this depositor and the
previously mentioned equipment
are modular systems, providing
greater flexibility in the products
they produce. "We have a series of
attachments, both single- and multiple-lane, depending on the application," noted the vice-president
of engineering and R&D. And different nozzles and depositing heads
can be swapped in and out without
tools. While the manufacturer offers a variety of devices for the
double-screw base pump, if it does
not have exactly what a customer
wants, it will custom engineer what
is needed, he said.
According to the sales manager
for the other manufacturer, "Our
system is modular, so it makes it easy
to change the die plate. If one day
you want to run extruded product
and the next day you want to wire
cut, you simply slide out the die cut
plate from the side of the machine. It
can be loosened by hand."
CREME INJECTION. Another manufacturer touted the quick changeover
possible using its depositor/injector.

The vice-president of engineering
said the depositor, which is primarily used to inject creme or jams into
individual cakes, is designed to fit
above an existing conveyor, and the
interchangeable manifolds can be
replaced in about 10 minutes. Other
systems may require an hour or more
for changeover, he noted.
The depositor features a single
manifold that injects an entire pan
of cakes at once, not just one row
at a time, he said. Additionally, the
equipment is mechanically driven
and moves both horizontally and
vertically. "It physically comes
down and reacts to the speed of
the pan, so the pan never has to
stop," he said. An operator needs
to make sure that the depositor is
set to track at the same speed as
the conveyor, so it will not slit a
product while it is injected, but he
said the depositor's speed is easily
fine-tuned.
Another equipment manufacturer added an all-electric lift system to
its depositing system for injecting
creme into cupcakes. Historically,
injection equipment relied upon
pneumatics to lower injector needles into product, but the director
of cake and snack products said he
has been hearing from bakers that
they don't like to depend on a good
air supply for this job. "Inevitably,
you have multiple pieces of equipment hooked up to a common air
supply, and there are fluctuations
in air pressure," he said. "If you are
in the middle of a cycle and another
piece of equipment on the other side
of the plant draws a lot of air, all of
the sudden you are not getting the
same results."
Pneumatic lifts also require good
clean air, because any impurities
can muck up the equipment, he
added. The new system, which
relies on motors and linear slides,
only needs voltage and amperage, and electricity is much more
constant than air, according to the
supplier. The new lift system also

Baking & Snack - April 2005

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