Businesses operating in the food and beverage industry face a Catch-22 dilemma brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, the combination of lockdown orders and restrictions on operating hours has led to a significant decrease in consumer demand. The other side of the Catch-22 coin involves skyrocketing commodity prices generated by supply chain disruptions and the rapid increase in the cost of raw materials. As a business operator in the dough production industry, what is the best strategy for returning to the bustling business days that preceded the pandemic?
The answer might be to change the type of bakery manufacturing equipment your business uses to produce dough.
Since 1994, Exact Mixing has provided our customers with an alternative way to mix the raw ingredients required to complete dough recipes. Before 1994, the batch-mixing process dominated the dough production industry. Although batch mixers get the job done, the time it takes to complete a single batch far exceeds the time it takes to complete a batch of dough that goes through the continuous mixing process.
Another time issue concerns the inability of batch mixers to put multiple batches through the same machine simultaneously. Whether you run a large facility that sells dough to wholesalers or offer your baked goods to retailers, you can only run one batch at a time through a batch mixer.
One Huge Difference Between Batch and Continuous Mixers
One of the most important differences between continuous and batch mixing systems concerns the number of pieces of equipment needed to process the dough. With a continuous mixer, the dough typically leaves the mixer in the shape of a long, thin rope or a shorter, wider log. A razor-sharp cutter at the end of the mixing chamber allows the employee handling the dough to make as many different sizes as warranted by each recipe. The most common weights of dough leaving the mixing chamber are 25 and 50 kilograms of freshly mixed dough. Exact Mixing developed an efficient process allowing the dough to fall onto a conveyor belt or into a hopper.
When you need to ramp up production, handling dough presents a greater challenge because of the stress that large chunks of dough place on the batch mixing system. You have to add at least one employee to handle the large chunks of dough, and you also risk damaging one or more components of a batch mixer. On the other hand, batch mixers dispense large sizes of dough that an employee must resize for movement through the mixing process. The extra step is one of many reasons why processing each batch of dough exceeds the cost of processing dough through a continuous mixer.
How Does Exact Mixing Provide Support?
Whether you purchase the LDX Continuous Mixer to complete batches of cookies or the FX Continuous Mixer designed exclusively for dough products such as those for chips and crackers, you can expect to receive more than the highest quality bakery manufacturing equipment. With the support of parent company Reading Bakery Systems, Exact Mixing has developed a support program to ensure our customers immediately reap the many benefits of continuous mixers. We complete system checks to verify every component built into a continuous mixer operates at peak efficiency. You can expect to work closely with one of our continuous mixing specialists to install your new mixer correctly.
Discover why the continuous mixers from Exact Mixing can help your business grow sales while reducing the costs of the dough mixing process. You can reach us by submitting the online Contact form or calling our headquarters at 610-693-5816.