The Automated Commercial Production of Soft Biscuits

At Apex we specialize in providing our customers with customized solutions for the automation of baked products such as stacking, cooling, tray loading, sandwiching, and various feeding systems for packaging. Our comprehensive range of automated machines and equipment are aimed at industrial and commercial baking requirements. Our baking technology provides solutions for every step in the baking process from kneading, molding, and dividing, to refrigeration and proving, through to final baking in shop and production environments. We believe that when all separate processes are perfectly aligned it is possible to achieve consistent high quality while being cost-effective. Our machines are very simple to operate and produce high-quality products day after day with less waste and higher productivity that translates into measurable energy savings.

Soft Biscuit Lines

The soft biscuit production process starts with the mixing of doughs to the next stages of feeding, molding and placing onto a steel conveyer belt. A number of ovens are used depending on the baking time required in relation to the traveling speed or performance of the production process. After baking the biscuits are transported to a cooling conveyor to a stacker, and finally to the packaging equipment. The soft biscuit line machines used in soft biscuit production include:

• Batch mixer for the continuous production of soft biscuit dough.
• Biscuit molder with dough feeding and molding rollers for dough molding.
• Equipment for deposited extruded and wire cut baked goods.
• Tunnel ovens and combinations with various heat systems for the production of soft biscuits and other fine bakery items.
• Cooling conveyors and feeding systems to downstream processing stations for finishing and packing.

A large range of different types of biscuits can be produced on this equipment. Sets of machines are combined based on the type of products required and additional equipment such as sprinklers, dusters, jam applicators, and seeders are available. Soft biscuits are baked in tunnel ovens equipped with either solid steel or mesh belts that deliver uniform browning with optimum baking results and higher output. Depending on requirements the biscuits can be molded, wire cut, extruded, or deposited. Special equipment is provided for co-extruded biscuits that are filled with a crème or fruit filling.

Biscuit Line Automation

The industrial equipment provided by Apex for an automated biscuit line is characterized by excellent availability, complete reproducibility of quality products, and easy operation which are directly related to the high degree of automation of the lines. All parameters like measuring, adjusting, and controlling can be automatically monitored and corrected by the control system, or manually operated by a line operator. A range of sensors continuously monitors the quality relevant parameters during the production process such as quality, performance, speed, and width of the dough sheet, thickness, moisture, temperature, and humidity of the dough, as well as the temperature of the oven. A completely self-regulating system enables the line modules to immediately react to obtained results and to modify the settings. The entire process is then documented in detail.

When it comes to Food Processing Automation and Packing, our goal at Apex is to turn our customers’ special requirements into production lines that fulfill the desired degree of automation they need, at a cost that allows the customer to create a great product and a healthy bottom line.

Check out the FDA inspections guide for soft biscuits here to know more about commercial biscuit production.