Gadsby’s Bakery in Mill Park, Southwell, is benefiting from the installation of a Humidair Retarder Prover from Double D Food Engineering (Broxburn, West Lothian), which it says has smoothed out “the peaks and troughs” in its production. “The Humidair Retarder Prover has been a tremendous boost for us,” says master baker Terry Gadsby. “By loading the unit the day before and setting the micro-processor controller accurately, we know that we’ll have 15 racks of product ready for firing exactly when we want the next day.”

The Humidair Retarder Prover has a ‘holding’ feature, which allows the baker to control the timing of the retarding and proving cycle to suit. Even with just a two-rack oven, goods can be prepared in a 12-16 rack retarder-prover and the holding feature enables the goods to be loaded into the unit at random, allowing the baker to fire off the product and avoid over-proving.