Reliable equipment that reduces or eliminates waste holds the key to keeping down costs on a pizza processing line. Several factors are involved, starting with taking good care of equipment to keep lines running efficiently. 

“For you to maintain a consistent process and consistent product, you need to maintain your machines consistently,” said Andres Lopez, business development manager, Handtmann Inc. “That’s the crux of it. Many people don’t have time to, and it’s not from a lack of want. It’s just that production is always king.”

Preventive maintenance (PM) that is planned during scheduled line downtime allows for equipment evaluation, adjustment and routine replacement of worn parts.

“A small investment in PM provides an excellent return on investment with improved line effectiveness and peace of mind,” he said.

Developing a quality product requires consistency all along the line, starting at the beginning.

“What you put in the machine you’re going to get out,” said Ken Hagedorn, vice president, bakery sector, Handtmann Inc., which makes equipment that produces dough balls for pizza crusts. “A lot of that comes back to mixing. We pride ourselves on our machines that minimize dough damage. If you put a great dough in there, that’s what will come out. If you’re consistent with your mixing, we’re going to be consistent with what’s coming out of our machine.”

Whether lines making pizza crusts are sheeted or press lines, they must be versatile to accommodate a market that’s constantly changing, said John McIsaac, vice president of strategic business development, Reiser.

“On filled crust lines, we provide precise application of sauces and cheese,” he said. “Filled cheese crusts are especially tricky. We work with our sheeting line partners to handle different types of cheese with precision forming and portioning. We also make sure we are fully integrated to downline fold-over equipment used for stuffed crust production.”

On press lines, Reiser’s Vemags precisely deliver dough portions, McIsaac noted. 

“A consistent quality pizza crust starts with consistency at the dough divider,” he said. “Accuracy in dough portioning is especially important. It affects the complete line from proofing to pressing to baking. The dough must also be handled gently to ensure bite quality.”

McIsaac pointed out that equipment effectiveness starts with the data: first in gathering it and second by effectively acting on it. 

“On press lines, we can weigh every dough ball and adjust the divider to the product,” he said. “The data gathered allows the customer to correlate directly between their input — flour, water, minor ingredients — to the amount of dough processed. Differences can determine areas of potential improvements.”

Managing waste and the fluctuations of ingredient costs are challenging for pizza makers, said Nick Magistrelli, vice president of sales, Rademaker USA.

“The equipment has to be designed to manage the rework of dough in the process and all the toppings,” he said.

Creating clear standard operating procedures is the best way to properly track line performance, Magistrelli added.

“Having line checks throughout the process to gather data is also an effective way to track the line’s performance,” he said. “The equipment needs to have available adjustments to automatically make corrections to the line or with operator involvement.”

Proper cleaning and maintenance are vital to keeping all equipment humming along. But some operations don’t fully embrace them, leaving tasks undone for far too long.

“There’s a lack of preventative maintenance on machines. That’s one of the things we see the most,” Hagedorn said. “Whether it’s not being able to find people, not wanting to find people or cutting back, it seems like a lot of companies are having a hard time maintaining proper preventative maintenance on their machinery. Continuous running without proper maintenance will result in issues down the road either in machine downtime or quality issues with the product.”

Failure to clean properly will bring a host of problems as well, including permanent damage to machinery. 

“If you don’t clean the machine out for a certain amount of time and you let old dough sit in the machine, that’s going to affect the performance of the machine as well,” Hagedorn added.

This article is an excerpt from the November 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Pizza Processing, click here.