Commercial bakery equipment list: what you need and in what order

Start with your product and your volumes

Before you look at machines, write down what you make and the most you make of each on your busiest day. Size for that peak, not your average. Then measure your floor, doors and ceiling height, and check your power supply: many larger machines run on three-phase power.

Mixing

What it does: develops the dough or batter. Everything downstream depends on getting this right.

When sizing, consider:

• Your largest single batch, in kg of dough. Tekno Stamap names its Helix spiral mixers by dough capacity, from the Helix 30 to the Helix 200.
• The product. Spiral mixers suit bread, pizza and leavened doughs. Planetary mixers whip creams, beat batters and fillings. Diving arm mixers knead gently, which suits very wet doughs and rich products such as brioche.
• Getting dough out of the bowl. Above a certain size, lifting by hand isn’t safe. Removable bowls and self-tipping mixers solve it.
• Water temperature. Dough temperature decides how it ferments. A water chiller and water meter put the right amount at the right temperature into every batch. Sitep says its flow meters save “about 1 hour of work per day”.

See our mixers and water chillers and meters.

Dividing and shaping

What it does: cuts dough into equal pieces and shapes them into loaves, baguettes, rolls or croissants, the same way every time.

When sizing, consider:

• Pieces per hour at your peak, and the range of piece weights you need.
• What you shape. A bread or baguette moulder for loaves and long breads (such as the Auxpama F4.0); a croissant machine if croissants are a big line. Tekno Stamap rates its CROYMAT models at 1,800 to 14,000 croissants an hour.

See shaping and dividing.

Sheeting and laminating

What it does: rolls dough to an exact thickness for puff, croissant, Danish, shortcrust and pizza. It’s the machine that makes lamination practical at any volume.

When sizing, consider:

• Belt width against the size of sheet you work with and your trays.
• Manual or automatic. A manual sheeter suits a few hours’ laminating a day. If someone stands at the sheeter all day, an automatic sheeter with stored programs, such as the Tekno Stamap SMART, frees them up and makes every batch the same.
• Space. Bench-top and fold-away models give floor space back at the end of the shift.
• Power. Manual models such as the Tekno Stamap EASY come in single-phase versions.

See dough sheeters.

Proving and retarding

What it does: a prover controls temperature and humidity so dough rises evenly. A retarder prover also holds dough cold, then brings it up to prove on a timer, so it’s ready when you arrive without a night shift.

When sizing, consider:

• Trays or trolleys your largest bake needs at once.
• Cabinet, bench or room. Cabinets and under-counter benches suit smaller bakeries; rooms take full trolleys.
• Your shift pattern. If you want fresh bread at opening without starting at 3am, retarding is the reason to buy.

See retarder provers.

Depositing

What it does: fills trays, cases and moulds with batter, cream or filling, the same weight every time. It replaces the piping bag.

When sizing, consider:

• Products and viscosity, from runny batters to stiff cookie dough.
• Inclusions such as chocolate chips or fruit, which need the right machine.
• Semi-automatic or automatic. A bench machine suits small runs; automatic depositors suit full production. On Formex’s figures, its DA depositor can fill about 8,700 muffins an hour.

See depositors and Formex depositors.

Baking

We supply Formex wood-fired ovens and stone-bake artisan ovens, and can advise on which suits your products. For deck, rack or convection ovens, talk to a specialist oven supplier. One tip either way: your oven decides your tray size, so choose it early and match your prover and blast chiller to the same trays.

Cooling and freezing

What it does: a blast chiller takes products down to temperature fast, so they keep structure and moisture. It lets you freeze dough or bakes and finish them later in the week.

When sizing, consider:

• Kilos per hour you need to chill or freeze, and whether you use trays or trolleys. Sitep’s range runs from a 5-tray cabinet up to models taking eight trolleys.
• Chill or freeze. Freezing for stock needs a lower temperature than chilling for next-day use.

See Sitep blast chillers.

Handling and automation

What it does: takes repetitive work off your team: scoring, loading and unloading trays and racks, and moving product between stages.

When sizing, consider:

• Where labour runs short. Automate that step first, not the whole bakery at once.
• Your racks, trays and line. Auxpama builds its tray handling and robots to fit what you already use.

See production lines and handling and bakery automation.

Checklist

Start-up vs growing bakery

Starting out: buy for the products you’ll launch with. A spiral or planetary mixer, a manual sheeter if you make pastry, a prover (a retarder prover if you want to avoid night work), and an oven cover most small and micro bakeries. Leave room on the floor and in your power supply for what comes next. Our page on starting a commercial bakery covers space, power and water in more detail.

Growing: find the bottleneck first. It’s usually one stage: mixing capacity, laminating time, shaping by hand, or proving space. Replace that machine, then look at the next. Water control and depositors often pay back fastest because they fix consistency as well as speed. See expanding production.