Tunnock's Hybrid Automation Balances Tradition and Technology in Baking Production
Tunnock's factory in Glasgow employs a hybrid approach to baking automation, combining machines with a 12-person caramel-spreading team to produce around 20 tonnes of caramel daily. This approach balances the flexibility and space efficiency provided by human workers with night-time machine operation to maintain output. Annually, Tunnock's produces about 7 million wafer bars and 4.5 million tea cakes, carefully managing production to preserve tradition alongside higher output.
The wafer bars are wrapped by encasing the product rather than sealing both ends, indicating that adopting sealing could potentially speed up the wrapping process. For cake decorating, Tunnock's uses the Unifiller HIRO robot arm—developed with Coperion and Stäubli—which handles toppings including caramel. This robot emphasizes hygiene, is easy to disassemble, and is designed to adapt to variations in cakes, such as centering issues, oval shapes, and domed tops. This need for adaptive robotics rejects rigid automation in favor of flexibility.
In northwest London, a bread factory supplies sourdough loaves to Gail's bakery. This 24/7 operation produces up to 40,000 loaves daily from 16 tonnes of flour, with head baker Anomarel Ogen emphasizing the importance of skilled hands for managing delicate dough and quickly adapting to recipe changes.
Forrester analyst Craig Le Clair supports a hybrid automation model that preserves the 'soul' of handcrafted bakery goods while utilizing automation to increase consistency, speed, and volume. Investment decisions at companies like Tunnock's depend heavily on the financial environment and market conditions, including volatile cocoa prices. A planned £2.5 million upgrade has currently been postponed.
Overall, the baking industry's move toward automation focuses on enhancing scanning, vision, and safety systems to enable smooth human-robot collaboration without disruption, blending technology with artisanal baking craft.
