IPCO advertorial
Innovative solutions for steel belts in bakery
IPCO, manufacturer of solid and perforated steel bake oven belts, discusses the importance of high-quality and hard-wearing belts in bakery production
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PCO is the world’s largest manufacturer of solid and perforated steel bake oven belts, supplying OEMs and end users alike. Belts are available in widths from 800 mm to 3500 mm, and are suitable for products as diverse as bread, biscuits, brownies, crackers, pastries, sponges, all-butter cookies and pizza bases.
Solid and perforated steel conveyor belts bring a unique combination of qualities to the table where the production of baked products is concerned. Among the most important of these is excellent heat transfer and thermal conductivity, which supports efficient baking and delivers a crisp attractive base to baked products such as real butter cookies. A high-quality bake oven belt will have certain mechanical properties – flatness, straightness – ‘engineered in’ at the production stage to ensure that it runs through the oven as it should. Consistency of colour is important too; dark areas absorb heat while light, shiny areas reflect it, so uneven belt colour could result in an uneven bake. This also has to be engineered into the belt. A flat, smooth surface ensures clean release at the end of the oven with minimal risk of damage to fragile products. This also means that a steel belt stays cleaner for longer, lessening the risk of a build-up of carbon deposits. And when cleaning is required, steel is easier to clean than other materials. This tough, hard-wearing surface is behind another quality: durability. With good maintenance a working life of 20 years is not unusual and can be much longer. This compares extremely well with wire mesh belts, which typically last 4-5 years. This ability to provide decades of service between replacements makes steel belts a sustainable choice too, as does their low cost of operation. Being lighter than mesh belts, they require up to 30% less energy to heat as they re- enter the baking chamber, and less energy is needed to drive them in the first place.
Biscuits on a solid steel bake oven belt.
The quality of the belt – its straightness and flatness – is central to its long term performance but bake oven belts also require effective tracking systems. IPCO produces active and passive belt alignment solutions, including the IPCO Compact Belt Tracker (CBT), which works with virtually any belt edge detector system. Tracking solutions are just one aspect of a comprehensive range of conveyor components supplied by IPCO. These include rolling supports, sliding supports (e.g. skid bars and graphite stations), frames, end stations, pulleys, cleaning devices and more.
IPCO has been involved in bake oven conveyor design for decades, often working hand in hand with oven builders to ensure that an oven reaches its full potential. This extends to ongoing partnerships with bakeries and the company has a Special Engineering team who can provide expert technical support.
This experience has resulted in an in-depth understand of how a belt behaves in an oven and how it interacts with the many other component parts that make up the system. As a result, IPCO can deliver inspection and maintenance services that go beyond the belt, with investigations encompassing the entire line to understand how the system as a whole is performing.
Number of employees: 600+ Location (HQ): Sandviken, Sweden Web:
ipco.com/bake Contact: Marko Leber, Global Product Manager, Food Email:
marko.leber@ipco.com
Conveyor components undergo testing at IPCO’s development centre
bakeryproduction.co.uk Kennedy’s Bakery Production May/June 2022 7
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