Balancing Tradition and Automation in Confectionery and Baking
Tunnock's near Glasgow produces around 20 tonnes of caramel daily, with a team of 12 workers spreading the caramel in five layers and checking its quality by touch. The factory outputs about seven million wafer bars and 4.5 million tea cakes per year. While caramel-spreading machines operate at night, human workers provide necessary flexibility and help save space. Wrapping is performed by hand rather than sealing the ends, a traditional method that technicians say slows production; sealing could increase speed but would alter the product’s character.
To bridge the gap between speed and tradition, HIRO, a robot arm from Unifiller (via Coperion), has been developed to decorate cakes and handle toppings including caramel. Hygiene and cleanability are key design challenges in food machinery, requiring components to be easily taken apart for thorough cleaning. The variability of cakes, which are often not uniformly centered or shaped, presents another challenge for automation as robots must adapt to these imperfections.
In northwest London, The Bread Factory (Gail’s) produces up to 40,000 sourdough loaves daily using 16 tonnes of flour. Despite advances in machinery, skilled bakers’ hands remain essential and cannot be fully replaced. The approach embraced is hybrid automation, deploying automation where it improves consistency, speed, and volume while preserving the core human value-add and the product’s "soul."
Coperion's Derm Lanoville discusses plans to enhance scanning, vision, and safety features so that automation integrates smoothly into existing production lines without being intrusive.
However, cocoa price volatility and current financial conditions have delayed further equipment investments, postponing a planned £2.5 million upgrade until conditions improve.
