Thanks to automation, Yummy Bakery has managed to save 8% on raw materials by controlling the weight of each pancake. “In the past we gave away too much pancake”, says Sara Geldhof.

The Bruges Pancakes from Yummy Bakery are baked in a traditional, artisanal way. Only natural ingredients are used, says manager and co-owner Sara Geldhof. “Our customers include the major retailers in Belgium and we are in the top 3. With its IFS certification, the company adheres to the highest standards in terms of food safety.

Some two years ago, Yummy Bakery expanded production at its site in Bruges to 22,500 pancakes per hour. “We built a second production hall, leveraging all the knowledge and experience from the production line in our first production hall”, Geldhof explains. Baking is done on a baking tray so the batter retains its creaminess. A spraying machine dispenses the batter onto the rotating plate. 

Automation

As the automated spraying installation is rather limited from a software point of view - and the French supplier had no intention of expanding the automation - Geldhof called on CTRL Engineering. “The automation company took care of the fine-tuning and digitalised the recipes. As a result, the machine is now fully automated thanks to the Beckhoff PLC (CX5140). The operator enters a recipe on a hygienically designed panel (CP3916). A single press of a button later, the entire production line is fully automated.” 

The only manual intervention left is for the operator to periodically remove a stack of pancakes from the conveyor belt for weighing. Still, the result is automatically sent to the control of the spraying installation and any adjustments are made automatically. Geldhof: “This results in a tremendous saving in raw materials, 10 to 50 grams in a 500 gram package, or somewhere around 8% per year. The deviation has been reduced to 0.4 grams and the ROI is one year.” 

Trade show Indumation.be in Kortrijk Xpo

Discover for yourself the power of automated production processes at the leading trade fair Indumation.be and be inspired by the latest developments in industrial automation and Industry 4.0. We would like to invite you to Indumation.be from Wednesday 31 January to Friday 2 February 2024 in Kortrijk Xpo (Belgium). You can book your free ticket via this link. All information about Indumation.be, the 250 exhibitors - including Beckhoff Automation, the programme and all practical information can be found here.

www.yummybakery.be

www.indumation.be