New Processing Equipment: November 2022
Novel ingredients and formulations—including some aimed to be “better-for-you” and others intended to be “fun”—are high on the list of features and benefits snack and bakery companies would like to see in extrusion equipment, along with ease of cleaning and maintenance, efficiency, and (naturally) the ability to produce a high-quality product.
Company: Reading Bakery Systems
Website: www.readingbakery.com
Equipment Snapshot: The most significant recent innovation from Reading Bakery is the WCX Wirecut machine, an improvement on the company’s previous model that adds significant flexibility. Bakeries can include up to 14 servo motors to control different cutting paths for extruded products and batters for cookies and bars. In addition, Reading Bakery has modified its standard low-pressure extruder to allow for the creation of a new take on the traditional broken pretzel product, called Dynabite.
Company: Egan Food Technologies
Website: www.eganfoodtech.com
Equipment Snapshot: Egan Food Technologies has made an assortment of automation upgrades to the SlabForm DUO, designed for smaller bakeries and snack bar manufacturers, with a two-lane system that slits wide slabs of bar material at the outset rather than later in the process. Egan has added a module to the SlabForm DUO to create bite-sized products, about one-inch square. Other new add-ons include a pre-feeder, slitter/spreader, retract conveyor, and cooling capabilities. In addition, during the first quarter of 2023, Egan will add an option to combine an extruder onto the line, allowing it to be multi-function.
Company: Reiser
Website: www.reiser.com
Equipment Snapshot: Reiser’s Vemag Portioner adds a new cutting device to the Vemag multi-lane bar extruder. The scalable device can be made with varying widths of extruder and cutter, meaning that four, eight, 10 lanes, and more all can be accommodated depending on production requirements. The portioner produces high volume and bars that are identical in length, with clean, even edges, and features a positive displacement double-screw pump to provide high accuracy.
Company: Clextral USA
Website: www.clextral.com
Equipment Snapshot: Clextral has rolled out two innovations in recent months: flexible line solutions to produce a greater variety of snacks on one line, ranging from savory, to sweet, to better-for-you; and new plug-and-play extrusion kits that give snack processors a variety of options for shapes and ingredients like smiley faces, hearts, ovals, and pea pods.