World First - Dough block divider-weigher-shaper RheoBloc

For several years, requirements have been evolving in the baking world. Consumers are increasingly looking for quality loaves and a wide choice throughout the day. The vast majority of bakeries therefore opted for the method of making loaves with pointed ends in bins, also called delayed resting time.

This offers many advantages : 

• It allows you to produce hot bread throughout the day
• Baking as needed reduces the amount of unsold items
• Labour flexibility
• Less night work needed
• You don't run short of bread at any time
• A greater range of loaves is available
• You can guarantee consistent quality

Despite all this, the method also has a number of disadvantages. We had to review some of the operations that were previously done by machine when bakeries were using automatic groups :

• Returning to manual dividing and weighing dough blocks
• There was more processing and time wasted shaping blocks and making sure that they would be usable
• Discomfort and risk of muscular and back problems for operators who have to lift the dough out of the kneading bowl

With more than 60 years' expérience in dough mechanization, plus having to listen to its customers ans operators, MERAND has developed a new machine to eliminate these disadvantages and allow bakery workshop to optimize their production of dough blocks. This is the MERAND RheoBloc, a block dividing, weighing and shaping machine.

The advantages of this new method are : 

• Significant time saving (about 40 mm / kneading bowl)
• Better working conditions and no more back trouble 
• Consistency of the blocks regardless of who is operating

This completely new machine is now coming into the market. the full version will di this for you :

• Load the mixed dough into a large hopper using a lifter
• Weigh and divide the dough blocks using a weighing system with weight control
• Shape the blocks in the right dimensions
• Automatically place the blocks in boxes or on trays, before taking them for cold resting time

Patents are being approved currently for this machine. It will be modular, so as to adapt it to the specific needs of the customer. By this we refer particularly to their quantity of blocks to be produced per day, and also the level of automation desired to reduce muscular and back problems.

The versions in mind are :

- Stage 1 : Collapsible table which prevent operators from the mixer, wich saves time and increases comfort.

- Stage 2 : Stage 1 + system for cutting and weighing dough blocks

- Stage 3 : Stage 2 + a system of automatically depositing blocks which have been weighed and cut into the boxes or on the trays.

Bakeries or production factories that produce more than a hundred blocks of dough a day will quickly find a significant return on their investment using RheoBloc. Similarly some bakeries with smaller volumes will certainly find benefits, especially in view of the increased confort and time saving.