Ben MorrisBusiness Technology Editor
A stream of hot caramel passes through Thomas Tunnock's factory near Glasgow.
From the second floor, where it is produced, it travels down conveyor belts to the first floor, bringing a sweet, warm aroma into the building.
But working with caramel is not easy. Experienced workers must check the correct consistency, and it takes a team of 12 people to spread the caramel into the five layers that make up the Tunnock wafer biscuits.
“We produce about 20 tonnes of caramel a day,” says Stuart Lowden, the firm's engineering and transport manager and the fifth generation of the Tunnock family to work in the business.
“Operators check the caramel often, just by sight and feel. Basically, they walk up to the caramel and just squeeze it.”
Once made, the caramel travels down a conveyor belt to the floor below, where a spreading crew works.
“It's very, very difficult to get caramel onto waffles because it's so sticky,” Mr. Lowden says.
While this is a labor-intensive part of Tunnock's operation, much of the rest of the plant is automated.
The company has always tried to use the latest technology to keep up with its competitors. Compared to snack food giants like McVitie's or Fox's, Tunnock's is a small player.
“We're a small fish in a big pond, and to keep up with the larger companies we compete with, you need good machines to get the product out,” Mr. Lowden says.
They have caramel spreading machines that run at night, but the human workforce is more flexible and takes up less space.
Together, machines and people produce about seven million wafer bars and 4.5 million tea cakes a year.
Increasing output may be a balancing act for a firm between maintaining its traditions and increasing output.
For example, like their caramel production, Tunnock marshmallows are produced under close human supervision.
This folds the wafer bar wrapper around the product rather than sealing the ends. If Tunnock switched to sealing, the production line could run faster.
“This is a good thing. If you give people a caramel waffle and someone hasn't had one in 20 or 30 years, they say, “I remember having one like that when I was a kid.”
The creators of a new robotic arm for the cake industry hope to bridge this gap between speed and tradition.
Canadian company Unifiller, part of Coperion, a major manufacturer of food processing equipment, has spent years developing a robotic arm called HIRO.
It is designed for decorating cakes and can work with all types of fillings, including caramel.
“If you can squeeze it through a piping bag… then it will pass through our equipment and decorating tips,” says Derek Lanoville, Coperion R&D manager.
But producing food processing equipment comes with additional challenges, perhaps the biggest of which is hygiene.
“We need to make things easy to take apart so people can clean them. The point is, if it's not easy to take apart, you won't clean it.”
The Unifiller robotic arm is made by Swiss robotics firm Stäubli, which can provide an arm that is easy to clean.
Another challenge is the variety of food products such as cakes.
On production lines in most industries, components will be the same size, often to within a fraction of a millimeter. In baking, things are different: the cakes rolling down the conveyor belt will be different—not by much, but enough to possibly frustrate the robot.
“The cake may not be perfectly centered on the cardboard it sits on. It may be slightly oval, slightly taller, or slightly domed. So our solution has to take that into account,” says Mr Lanoville.
For Anomarel Ogen, human hands still play an important role in the baking process.
Mr. Augen is the head baker at the Bread Factory, where food is baked for the Gail's cafe chain.
Their north-west London bakery operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, supplying sourdough loaves to Gail's as well as supermarkets, shops and restaurants.
Producing up to 40,000 loaves a day uses around 16 tonnes of flour, which sounds like a lot, but compared to the giant bakers it's still a mid-sized business.
The machines knead the dough and divide it into smaller loaf-sized portions.
They use a variety of flours that are grown using sustainable methods that prioritize soil health.
Mr. Ogen says this means their dough is tender. We watch one of their workers shape the dough into loaves.
“Look at his hands and see how delicately he actually moves, how little pressure he actually applies. This requires many years of skill. This is not yet completely replaceable by machines,” says Mr. Ogen.
The presence of personnel in the plant also increases the flexibility of the production process. If the recipe is changed, they can monitor the effect it has on the dough and change the baking process if necessary.
“You can automate more, but you still have to constantly monitor the process to ensure the process is safe,” says Mr. Augen.
Incorporating new technologies into a production line is always a balancing act, says Craig Le Claire, principal analyst at research firm Forrester and author of Automation's Accidents: How to Fight Back When Automation Threatens Your Job, Your Life, and Everything You Do.
“The key in the food industry, as in other industries, is to develop a hybrid model that integrates automation without losing the “soul” of a handmade product such as a decorated cake.
“Process transformation should apply automation only to those areas that benefit from consistency, speed and volume, while keeping the core elements of added value strictly human,” he says.
Back at Coperion, Mr. Lanoville plans to continue developing the robotic arm.
“What we're focused on this year is improving our scanning, vision and safety systems so our customers can work the way they work without the intrusiveness of robots.”
Meanwhile, in Glasgow, Mr Lowden plans to upgrade his production line, but much depends on the financial situation. Cocoa prices have been volatile over the past two years, which has had a major impact on his firm.
“When it comes to investing another two-and-a-half million pounds in equipment, we'll just have to wait because the last couple of years have just been the wrong time and we don't want to put ourselves in a financial position where it could hurt us.”
