Bakery rises to QA challenge

Like most Australian, and indeed international, industries, bakery is moving towards increasing quality control — of both machinery and product, as SAMANTHA SCHELLING reports.

Australia’s bakery industry is perhaps best

looked at as a dichotomy: “savoury”, as in bread, and sweet-type products.

The bread side is dominated by a couple of fairly large organisations, engaged in traditional manufacture with conventional types of machinery. It’s relatively static. However, changes are taking place on the pastries, sweet and confection-type bakery side.

…

Sophistication, an offshoot of innovation, is also a key in marketing.

Trish Griffiths, nutrition services manager at The Grains Research Centre, BRI Australia Ltd, also manages Go Grains, an industry initiative developed by BRI Australia and supported by the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC). Go Grains’ aim, through nutrition information, is to increase consumption.

…

Now they need to turn those powerful figures into product moving off shelves.

If machinery-sales figures are any guide to consumption — and, arguably they are, as increased production capability surely translates to increased output, which isn’t going to outer space — then we’re eating more bakery products.

Shaughan Syme heads up Symetec. With the GST introduction looming, Symetec sold out a lot of its machinery in April-May following at the Brisbane Fine Foods Exhibition, but didn’t restock, just delivered against orders until it saw how the GST panned out.

“Within 3 months of Come the end of July, we suddenly had nine machines on the water,” Mr Syme says, almost incredulously.

“I really can’t explain it, because post-GST the price of the machine hasn’t moved.

“I asked people if it was the result of the Olympics; a couple in Sydney said ‘yes’, but people interstate haven’t had any flow-on result, they were simply finding things a little bit better.”

The experience is reflected in the New Zealand market, “and that’s despite them saying they are in a mini recession”.

Mr Syme says interest has been in both rotary and rack ovens, indicating use for a variety of baking styles as well as its Forming machines and Rheon encrusting machines.

The company took on distributorship of, a Danish-made rack oven in October. This is Symetec’s first rack oven; it has previously competed against them with rotary ovens, but “it’s a terrific oven” and the style is popular, Mr Syme says.

The FN Aerotherm, being horizontal flow, doesn’t suffer the even-cooking problems many other rack ovens do. This gives a more consistent product.

“With a vertical flow you tend to get a concentration of heat, and a high and low pressure between the top and the bottom. These [FN Aerotherm] ovens send the flow horizontally from corner to corner diagonally across the cabinet, so the pressure is different between a corner and its diagonal opposite, but, in the middle, where it’s going through the rack, the pressure is the same. It is also the same from top to bottom.”

Increased consistency, including tightening of machine standards, is a something Mr Syme sees looking at the industry overall.

“While safety on machinery is strict, hygiene requirements will probably be tightened up. I believe AQIS [Australian and Quarantine Inspection Service] approval will be phased in during the next few years. At the moment, it’s only needed for exporting, but a lot of people have gone for it because it is a slightly higher standard and that is something they can advertise.”

He says no revolutionary changes are coming through, just small ones, and predicts another: precise control.

“Australia has not had to be extremely consistent with bakery products. Control has been inconsistent in temperature and ingredients, mainly because in Australia, ingredients are easy to source and cheap; but in Europe, it has been the practice for many years to achieve the exact weight as declared, and to be very precise on the control of ingredients like flour, temperature of air and water ingredients, liquid yeast and so on.

“We have noticed some companies now are realising they do have to have tighter and closer control of temperature and the quality. They need to know more about what their product is. They are starting to ask now for a lot more information from the mills, as to what’s in the flour, instead of just getting the gluten measurement.”

He also cites continuous weighing t dividers, which aren’t of too much interest to Australian companies yet, but are huge in America and Europe.

“Here, they’re seen as too expensive and companies don’t see the need for that level of control. But we think it is only a matter of a few more years and the Australian market will catch up on that as well, especially with people who are exporting.

“Australia is three to six years behind — and I can see those issues as being an important part of the baking industry in the next few years.”

The quality control push has come not only because of hygiene requirements (including issues with food poisoning), but also profitability and quality pluses from better use of resources.