Leading breakfast cereal company expands
Date: 18 April 2007
Flexible new Baker Perkins rotary cooker and extrusion plant
Portugal’s leading breakfast-cereal company is expanding its product, process and volume base with flexible new equipment from Baker Perkins.
Cerealis is investing in rotary cooking, the latest generation of Thermoglide toaster and flaker, extrusion cooking and post-extrusion forming, and a coating plant.
Cerealis’ existing capacity is based entirely on Baker Perkins equipment, and the new equipment upgrades their capacity to make high quality corn flakes, through Baker Perkins’ capability to supply process equipment for whatever products the customer requires.
As well as upgrading its cornflake capability, Cerealis is adding the ability to make wheat, bran and multigrain flakes, plus bran sticks; and increase its capability in extruded cereals.
The investment will maximise plant usage, enabling Cerealis to offer a complete portfolio of high-value branded and own-label products in Portugal and abroad.
Cerealis is part of the Cerealis (formerly Amorim-Lage) group.
In addition to breakfast cereals, it is the leader in Portugal in milling, dry pasta, fresh pizzas and fresh cooked dishes such as lasagne and cannelloni; it has also developed strong positions in other sectors including biscuits.
The Baker Perkins name has returned to breakfast cereal and snack processing equipment because of the re-naming of APV Baker, following the sale of that company to private investors by Invensys.
The process specification for this phase of Cerealis’ development was driven by the end-product.
Baker Perkins’ ability to link production lines, and the inherent flexibility of the equipment and process, gives Cerealis the freedom to adapt as new products and trends enter the market.
Cerealis’ new product development team and Baker Perkins’ food technologists worked together to prove the new product range in the Innovation Centre at Peterborough.
This co-operation allows new concepts to be fast tracked from concept to delivery to the supermarket - Baker Perkins cereal lines can be rapidly expanded on a modular ‘building block’ basis to bolt-on new products and processes.
The cereal cooking process is used to ensure that the texture, flavour and nutritional benefits of wholegrain ingredients are retained by automated cooking cycles that guarantee gentle, even hydration of the cereal grains whilst retaining starch structure.
These cookers are used by leading manufacturers worldwide to meet the growing market for high-quality, healthy breakfast cereals with high consumer appeal.
The Thermoglide is a fluidised bed toaster custom-designed for the blistering, colouring and drying operations essential to produce high quality product.
Baker Perkins’ comprehensive process knowledge has created a new generation of cost-effective, compact, integrated units with reduced energy consumption, minimum maintenance and cleaning needs, and a rapid installation time.
Baker Perkins flaking rolls are used by leading multinational and regional breakfast cereal manufacturers throughout the world to process a wide range of corn and multigrain flakes, from both traditional rotary cookers and cooker-extruders
Upgrades exploiting state-of-the-art control technology are enhancing the performance of Baker Perkins’ latest generation of flaking rolls for high quality cereal production.
These improvements also reduce life-time cost of ownership.
The extrusion and forming plant will be used to produce a range of extruded, co-extruded pillow and cereal square products.
Twin-screw extruders cook ingredients via a combination of heat, mechanical shear and moisture addition; flavours and colours can be added directly into the barrel.
Fully-automated Baker Perkins syrup preparation and coating systems enhance product flavour and appearance.
Autofeed weighing and feeding systems feed a skid-based syrup preparation system that dissolves sugar granules and incorporates cocoa into the dissolved syrup before metering the syrup to a coating drum where it is sprayed onto the product.
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