Baking & Snack - February 2024 - 102

featured technical expert Q&A
Daryl Verchère-Glover
FME Food Machinery Engineering
Daryl Verchère-Glover has always been fascinated by how machines
work.
" Growing up, I enjoyed watching " How It's Made " and working
on vehicles to understand the mechanics behind it all, " he said.
This love for machines led Mr. Verchère-Glover to pursue
a degree in mechanical engineering from the British Columbia
Institute of Technology. After graduating, he joined the industrial
baking industry, which he said felt like a natural fit.
" It brings together great people, intriguing machines with
unique challenges and the chance to design machines that are not
just efficient but also durable, " he said.
Mr. Verchère-Glover began his career in the industry at FME
Food Machinery Engineering as a mechanical designer. He then
worked at other firms in a variety of roles, including engineering
manager, project manager, technical sales manager and product
manager, among others. He eventually returned to FME where he
now serves as vice president, with the intention to succeed company
founder Norman Schmidt upon his retirement.
Reflecting on his 12 years in the industry, Mr. Verchère-Glover
What technology is available today that helps cookie
producers reduce labor, or the need for skilled labor?
The majority of labor spent on this process is typically in the portioning
and placement process of the line. Ice cream scoops and
hand placement onto pans are a great example of this.
Having a machine capable of taking care of the portioning and
placement onto pans or paper for frozen products has a significant
ROI in labor overhead alone. If a worker can portion and place a
cookie every 3 to 4 seconds onto a pan, this equates to 15 to 20
cookies placed per minute. With a depositing machine, equipped
with a standard four-port die, running at a very reasonable 60 cuts
per minute, one laborer would be able to portion 240 deposits per
minute. Not only are the deposits portioned, in most cases, you
can increase the deposits per pan with more accurate placement
which in turn saves oven space as well as increases throughput.
You would require around 12 to 16 laborers to achieve this output.
Modern depositors will have quick tooling changeovers, recipe
driven programs, tool-free disassembly, and open access surfaces
for rapid and efficient sanitation which all help to eliminate the
need for multiple skilled laborers.
For larger commercial bakeries, items such as vision systems
to monitor and reject products with feedback loops to control
upstream equipment, recipe driven controls and tailored designs
for the tooling used to maximize flexibility can all lead to a more
automated process to reduce labor while maintaining/increasing
overall quality.
102 Baking & Snack February 2024 / www.bakingbusiness.com
said his biggest accomplishments
have come out in the
field, working with customers
to solve their most difficult
challenges.
" I enjoy the problematic doughs, " he
explained. " I get excited when a customer
calls and prefaces the conversation with 'We've
tried everything.' "
Building the right piece of equipment that makes life easier
for a customer while elevating their productivity is incredibly rewarding,
he added. With so many machines to choose from in
today's market, Mr. Verchère-Glover observed that a common
challenge he sees is producers choosing one that isn't the best fit,
requiring them to sacrifice flexibility or product quality.
" I much rather prefer a perfect marriage of machine and product
where no modifications to the recipe or differences to the final
product can be accomplished, " he said. " All too often I see the
opposite and manufacturers end up having to invest twice. "
What advancements in technology allow bakers to
boost cookie capacity or streamline production?
If a manufacturer is looking to add more capacity in the portioning
process, there are a few areas to cover. Dough feeders are a
great way to prevent downtime between batches. Unlike bowl lifts,
dough feeders have their own hopper with a larger capacity than
the depositor hopper. This creates a 'battery' of dough that is ready
to be fed into the depositor. Coupled with a photo eye to monitor
depositor hopper levels, a dough feeder will automatically feed
dough to the depositor hopper and maintain hopper levels which
contributes to consistency in the product being manufactured.
This allows the depositor to run without having to manually monitor
hopper levels, leading to downtime on the line.
Break-and-bake tooling is a great method of manufacturing
portioned products in a densely packed matrix. By densely packing
deposits onto a tray and staging them, the production team won't
be required to slow the depositing equipment down to meet the
bottlenecked oven capacity.
Pan feeders and de-nesters are relevant as well. Hand feeding
pans to a depositor will lead to a reduction in production. Pan
feeders for placing pans and co-bots for placing pans into racks are
the next steps to a near hands-off operation.
How can cookie manufacturers maximize the
consistency and quality of their product?
Depositing equipment has been around for decades. I still see
FME Food Machinery Engineering
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