So, you have goods to deposit or extrude, but what’s the

right piece of kit for your bakery? Here’s a selection

Minipan Comby3 by EPP

Who is it for?
Bakers wishing to grow a specialist or niche cookie business, who do not require large-scale industrial production. It can extrude, deposit or wire-cut a wide variety of recipes.

My operator’s not the cleverest
Not to worry, the machine is very easy to run and clean and it employs the latest in touchscreen controls. It also retains 40 recipes in its memory. Moulds are easy and fast to replace.

Techie spec
The depositing head utilises three stainless steel rollers for high consistency and production rates, while hopper capacity ranges from 32 litres to 70 litres. Accessories include a stainless steel jelly topper, sugar sprinkler and washing kit. It handles 30in x 18in trays.

Sounds too small
For larger firms, EPP also supplies Comas depositors, which can handle virtually any batter. They can make 9,000 muffins an hour.

Unifiller by Interbake

What does it do?
Unifiller offers precise portion control essential for muffin or cake batters that contain fruit, nuts or chocolate chips.

Why is it worth a look?
It’s said to be user-friendly in its design, fast and accurate, and it’s mounted on locking castors, making it mobile and modular.

"You need hands"
Unifiller machines are designed to quickly train new employees on how to operate, strip down and clean a machine. There are no tools required with the assembly just a pair of hands.

Techie spec
Recently launched is a fully computer-controlled, servo-driven, multi-piston depositor, capable of making weight adjustments automatically when coupled to a check weighing load cell. This means that when the consistency of a cake batter or filling changes during production, the machine will automatically detect this and adjust the correction accordingly.

Can I pimp it?
Yes. There’s a wide choice of optional attachments.

Cornucopia by Rheon

What’s it for?
These encrusting machines were originally developed to produce various biscuits and bread dough products. However, they’ve since found much wider applications in the manufacturing of snack and health foods and confectionery products.

’owt else?
Yes, they can be used to produce filled products of various shapes and sizes such as Scotch eggs, filled breadsticks, sausage rolls and open-top pizzas.

How does it work?
The basic concept of this encrusting machine is to combine two materials one material as an outer casing and the other as a filling. The machine extrudes the two materials as a continuous extrusion and the shutter device cuts and seals the extrusion to the desired weight and/or length.

And for the mod squad
a range of optional devices are available, such as double filling feeders, solid feeders and twist and mosaic nozzles, which can be used to create a variety of unique products.

Vemag by Reiser

What’s it for?
The Vemag HP15 is for large-volume production and the Vemag 500 for smaller volumes. It handles all types of depositing and extruding applications that require exact-weight portions.

You can throw the kitchen sink at it then?
Probably not advisable. But it will gently portion heavy doughs and those with large inclusions, all types of bread and cookie dough, cake and muffin batter, pie fillings, cream cheese and frosting. It can extrude sheets of fats or dough with consistent thickness and width.

Techie spec
The Vemag Filler features a powerful, positive displacement double-screw pump, providing high portioning accuracy. This transports the product from the hopper to the machine outlet without damaging it. All models feature a portioning computer, with multiple programme options.

What about extras?
A few modular attachments include a guillotine cut-off, a rotary sheeter and a water wheel for multiple-lane portions.

Rotomax from Tromp

What’s it for?
High-accuracy depositing of hard doughs with large particulates. This was developed to handle cookie and biscuit doughs with inclusions, such as nuts, raisins and chocolate chips. It can also be applied to deposit shortcrust or savoury dough billets in scrapless pie lines.

Problems solved
It brings the shape and weight control accuracy of volume depositing to products based on a stiffer dough.

How does it work?
It combines the volumetric process of pressing the dough from a chamber on to a form or tray, with a wire-cut to the dough as it is ejected.

Bolt-on with that?
Yep, it joins a range of electronic, roll, auger and spot depositors, such as the Unimac a universal electronic machine, programmable to create virtually any shape over a wide size range. The product line includes cookies, batters, meringues and praline fillings. It can also be configured to fit above a make-up line.