Foodservice equipment manufacturer Middleby Corp. acquired Escher Mixers, an industrial bakery equipment supplier. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
The Age of COVID has driven home the importance of properly cleaning and sanitizing equipment used in the production of foods sold in grocery perimeter departments. At the same time, however, labor shortages have made it harder to find qualified workers to perform those tasks.
Dividers and rounders must check a few boxes for bakeries. Accuracy comes first, as bakeries need to make sure dividers are hitting weight or volume targets without going over, which can be challenging with yeast-raised products in bakeries with fluctuating temperatures.
Unifiller Systems, a global leader in portioning equipment, has announced the launch of the +Series Depositors, digitally controlled pneumatic depositors.
In an age of severe labor shortages, few pieces of equipment are more valuable than depositors, which allow the automated repeated depositing of a consistent quantity of products rather than relying on a human being with a piping bag or a scoop.
At the IBIE show in September, Delta, BC-based Unifiller plans to launch several new pieces of equipment that are exclusively designed for supermarket and commissary bakeries and delis that supply supermarkets, said Sonia Bal, the company’s director of global marketing.