Q&A with Unifiller

Bakers Journal chats with Sonia Bal, the Director of Marketing for Unifiller about automation and cake texture, and how the Cake-O-matic keeps bakers creative while saving time.

What do clients look for in terms of texture this year?

With cakes still top and side iced with either fondant, fondant icing, whipped topping, chocolate enrobing or buttercream, our retails and commercial bakery customers still want a cake base that’s smooth and bubble-free as a foundation for their creativity.

Unifiller accomplishes this through our simple machines like the COM (Cake-O-Matic).  It’s a very popular machine for bakeries struggling to get trained labor in or that need to efficiently and quickly base ice cakes without too much waste. It’s a well-known fact that icing texture can change from batch to batch, but the COM can repeatedly and consistently deposit icing regardless of product type, batch or deposit speed. Bakers can quickly finish cakes with a pre-determined amount of icing, limiting operator error ensuring consistent results every time. The great thing about the COM is that it can act as a stand-alone machine or eventually integrate into a larger cake decorating system. Once clients have the base icing in place, it’s easy to build designs and textures on top of that.

How can automation deliver an eye-catching pattern or texture?

Patterns are usually reserved for our decorating modules. We offer various servo and robotic decorating modules depending on the customer’s specifications. If a customer were looking to finish their cakes with writing, drizzling, roses, or other intricate patterns, we would recommend our robotic decorating modules.

What are some challenges bakers having in delivering uniform texture, and how can Unifiller help?

Automation can solve a lot of problems in a bakery – including helping a bakery scale up to produce more in less time, and reducing waste or touch-up time. Customers who have a loyal following or have scaled up to supply grocery stores for example, find that consistent look, feel and taste are key to bringing customers back to their products and brand. Once they’ve developed a recipe that customers absolutely love, it’s important to consistently have repeatable results. Unifiller’s had many new developments over the last year. This was the case, for our customer Buddy Valastro of Cake Boss. Servo technology is key to cake production, providing optimal spread control of buttercream with a reduced need for touch-up. Servo technology allows for quick spreading, due to constant speed regardless of pressure. Customers can build and recall recipes, while the system also conducts performance monitoring, collecting useful data on production rates, cycles, and deposits

What are some examples of machine-delivered patterns that have won clients and consumers over?

Our machines are semi to fully automated for round, sheet, cheese cake, bar cake production and cupcake production. We have modules for mid-fill, side icing, top icing and even syrup spraying. We also have machines for finishing such as enrobing, drizzling, marbling, writing, rose application and bordering. For bordering, we can do standard borders, shells, scallops, ruffles, leaves rosettes, full cover, roses, carrot patterns, etc. For writing, any pattern is possible – flowers, hearts, snowflakes and more – with our tablet-based interface for our robotic machine.

How can automation help a baker save time?

Automation can solve a lot of problems in a bakery – including helping a bakery scale up to produce more in less time, and reducing waste or touch-up time. Like many things in the bakery business we have seen huge price increases over the last year and basic raw materials like sugar, flour, eggs and dairy so portion control is even more critical than ever before.