Venturing into the savory pie market poses a challenge for some traditional bakers and dessert makers. That’s because the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates the production of any meat, poultry and egg products, and that’s a whole new ballgame.

“USDA-registered facilities are heavily inspected and must meet rigorous requirements for sanitation and food safety, where a non-USDA facility does not have near the annual inspections or held to high sanitation standards and practices,” noted Rod Gregg, president of Hinds-Bock and Inline Filling Systems, both Middleby Filling and Depositing brands.

“Bakeries need to know that they should always be looking to purchase USDA-certified equipment, designed to be clean and sanitized quickly and often,” he added. “If not, the equipment can be flagged by non-certification and be deemed unusable.”

As a result, many dessert producers are opting for production lines with sanitary designs that meet USDA requirements, observed Rick Hoskins, chief executive officer, Colborne Foodbotics.

“The USDA standard requires different materials for sheeting rollers and other product contact surfaces in addition to other design standards for mechanisms that are over the product zone,” he said. “You would expect to see an increase in cost of equipment between 10% and 20% above a standard pie line.”

USDA-inspected lines typically come with such features as washdown capabilities and stainless steel surfaces designed to resist risk of contamination due to the buildup of food particles and bacteria, said Ty Sarajian, president, Axis Automation. Easy-to-remove parts and clean-in-place systems are also common.

Cleaning can be quite different for sweet and savory products.

“While there may be a higher standard of quality requirement for meat fillings, sweet fillings and toppings tend to be more viscous and stickier and thus harder to clean and remove,” said Sonia Bal, director, global marketing, Unifiller Systems.

This article is an excerpt from the August 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature one Pie Processing, click here.