Robotic decorating addresses bakery needs

Decorating cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and pies are labor-intensive tasks that require skilled and experienced bakery workers. With the drastic reduction of skilled decorators retiring or not entering the industry, robotic decorating offers the perfect answer for bakeries looking to stay competitive.

This year’s International Dairy Deli Bakery Association convention provided the site of the unveiling of the newest piece of equipment from Apex Motion Control – the Baker-Bot Quad, a truly reinvented automated system for decorating and icing round and sheet cakes.

The Baker-Bot and Baker-Bot MAX are collaborative robots that are designed, built and assembled at Baker-Bot’s facility in British Columbia, Canada. These cobots were purposely designed to meet the demands of modern industrial bakery production.

Apex Motion Control has more than 20 years of experience helping bakeries reach production, consistency and accuracy goals now, and in future expansions and business growth.

Benefits and features are versatile solutions specific to your application. They reduce repetitive strain to workers by automatically decorating, drizzling and writing on cakes. This machinery increases productivity and consistency with standard and custom configurations. The cobots feature temperature- controlled pumps.

Capabilities include tray management, palletizing, primary and secondary packaging, decorating, writing and drizzling, depositing, filling and spraying, as well as dough cutting and placing

Cobot advancements

Earlier this year,  Doosan Robotics Inc., one of the world's leading collaborative robot (cobot) manufacturers, exhibited its capabilities to transform the robotics landscape at Automate 2024, North America's largest automation showcase, with the industry's latest cobot advancements across various sectors.

With a comprehensive range of cobots and cutting-edge software like Dart-Suite and AI technology, Doosan Robotics is dedicated to revolutionizing motion solutions tailored to human needs. From machine tending to palletizing, welding, and food and beverage services, the company offers a diverse array of ready-to-sell solutions catered to both domestic and global markets. That is why Doosan Robotics' theme at this year's Automate was "The Motion Platform Company."

The industry-leading, motion-platform company showcased "Dr. Presso," an unmanned modular café equipped with a top-of-the-line coffee machine.

Automated cake production line

A wide range of companies feature new innovations designed to make the bakers’ and cake decorators’ lives simpler and more efficient.

Unifiller does more than just batter transferring and depositing. Its machines can split, fill, ice and decorate a cake in minutes, whether with a stand-alone machine, cake icing machine or an automated cake production line.

Spraying machines

BAKON manufactures professional, commercial and industrial spraying machines for confectioners, bakers and the food industry worldwide.

These spray machines can spray all kinds of liquid like, oil, glaze, jelly, aspic, fondant, egg wash, syrup, chocolate and more.

In addition, Bakon’s range of Jelly Easy machines consists of three models: the Jelly Easy, the Jelly Easy I with 1 spray gun and the Jelly Easy II with 2 spray guns.

The Jelly Easy (tabletop) has been developed for those circumstances which ask for an easy to operate glaze spraying machine.

The Jelly Easy I and II are similar to the tabletop model in terms of functionality, but they are movable on swivel wheels and the machine cabinet has room for two containers. These modern machines are developed to spray all kinds of ready-to-use glaze.