Czech bakery company Penam has opened the first robotised bakery in the Czech Republic, near Prague.

The industrial bakery company has spent E17.8 million (£12.7m) on building the new site, which has created 120 jobs.

The group has also invested in one of the largest Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging pro-jects in Europe, tracking 300,000 crates through its supply chain.

RFID ’bar codes’, touted as the future of logistics, allow retai-lers and suppliers to track goods throughout the supply chain.

An RFID tag uses radiowaves, which are read electronically to identify products.

Some tags can be read from several metres away and beyond the line of sight of the reader, improving the efficiency of inventory tracking and management.

Penam, which is owned by chemical and agriculture group Agrofert Holdings, has 14 industrial bakeries and three mills in the Czech Republic, which process 190,000 tons of wheat annually. The company also operates 47 bakery shops.

Penam ended 2006 with a net profit of E5.1m and a turnover of E103.4m.