MH - mercati

Process part

The world of bakery products is rather vast and their industrial production reflects this with dedicated technological solutions; however, within them we can identify some macro-categories with replicable and consolidated production and packaging processes.

Let us begin by framing these categories, which already begin to differentiate by the type of cooling:

The first and most important is obviously bread, in all its forms.

There are, of course, thousands of different types of bread and also a fair combination of ways of packaging it and bringing it to market. These various aspects influence both the transport and the design of the machinery; however, if we were to establish a general rule, the most common case involves cooling by means of a spiral conveyor. Crackers, Rusks and Dry Biscuits. All these products have in common that they are particularly fragile. Cooling takes place on wide belt conveyors, over many rows.

Shortbread Cookies.

Also in this case, cooling takes place on wide belt conveyors, but downstream the feeding system of the machines varies a lot depending on the type of package.

Confectionery products such as cakes and pastries.

Typical pastry or breakfast products. They are more 'malleable' than one imagines. They are cooled in spirals and packaged in horizontal flowpacks (again as for bread except for the mini products that go in verticals), and loaded with chicane alignment units.

Primary packaging feeding

Chicane aligners

Bulk lines

Products on edge lines

There are three typical primary packaging feeding systems:

CHICANE ALIGNMENT GROUP

suitable for: bread, rolls, cakes and sheets. This feeds the primary packaging. These are usually horizontal flowpack type machines. In some cases there are cutter machines that slice the bread before packaging (boxed bread or buns for hamburgers or hot dogs).
Chicane aligners

STACKED LINES

suitable for crackers, rusks and dry biscuits, are also used for shortbread if the product goes into the so-called 'single portions', typical of the health and wellness lines. The products are ribbed and processed with special belts to be loaded into the machine in 'packs'. Typical machines are horizontal flowpack or wallet wrapping machines.
Products on edge lines

BULK LINES and BULK ELEVATORS

particularly used for classic shortbread biscuits usually go in bags, the packaging machines have top feeding and therefore conveyors are used for the so-called "bulk" product, i.e. treated in a completely messy way with the biscuits also stacked one on top of the other, and usually there are BULK ELEVATORS that go to load the scales placed on top of the machines. This type of feed is also used for mini-sandwiches and mini-slices (saccottini and croissants), which often go in multi-pack bags.
Bulk lines

Primary packaging

Flowpack
Wrapping machines
VFFS

There are three types of primary packaging machines, but they often come with other accessories.

The horizontal flowpack has been the most widely used lately: it certainly covers bread and rolls, possibly also in multiple formats, cakes and puff pastries and single-portion shortbread; in many cases it has also replaced the wrapping machine for ribbed biscuits. The wrapping machine is still the preferred method for rusks.

Vertical flowpacks or square-bottom bagging machines are still widely used for both smaller formats and classic shortbread. Some more premium shortbreads can be found in a multiple format inside an acetate tray, then covered with flowpacks. Other frequent accessories are bread cutters, prior to packaging, and dividers, again for sliced bread downstream of the primary packaging.

Connection to secondary packaging

Buffer

SVn-Bare lightweight spirals

Mergers

Single portions of biscuits, crackers and pastries usually go into a multipack tray made of cardboard, which in turn is covered with an additional flowpack.
Other formats often go directly into the tray packer.

In this part of the line it is quite common to insert LIFO buffer systems and another popular trend in recent years is to free up floor space by using light spirals to connect with secondary machines at height.

Buffer Mergers Dividers SVn-Bare lightweight spirals

Secondary packaging

Tray packer
Overwrapper flowpack
Cartoning machine
Case packer

The variability of primary packaging is important in the bakery sector.

As mentioned, there are different types of multipacks which often also have different levels of packaging, consisting of a wrapper or wrap-around followed by an additional flowpack. It is also possible to find cartoning machines that do the display for smaller outlets. This is almost always followed by a case packer, and in some cases of bread production for the Horeca sector you can find fillers for reusable plastic crates.

Boxes line to palletiser

Sorter and ARB devices

Low pressure accumulation

Spiralveyor

Come anticipato esistono diversi tipi di multipack che spesso hanno anche diversi livelli di imballo, composti da un’invassoiatrice o una wrap around seguite da una ulteriore flowpack. Possibile anche trovare delle astucciatrici che fanno il display per i punti vendita più piccoli. Segue quasi sempre una incassatrice, in qualche caso di produzione di pane per il settore Horeca si trovano riempitrici per cassette di plastica riutilizzabili. Linee scatole Finally, the conveyors for transporting boxes and feeding them to the palletiser see the usual technologies applied, from roller conveyors or friction rollers for accumulation sections to activated roller belts for sorting and layer formation.

There is no shortage, of course, of the proverbial spirals to free up floor space and feed the palletisers from above.

Sorter ARB devices Low-pressure accumulation Spiralveyor