Like any other unit, establishing a bakery business also needs thorough and wise planning on size, location, design, equipment and machinery, and finances thereby. Aparana Sharma describes some essentials considerations for planning a bakery unit.

Food processing industries play a vital role in the development of the economy of a country. The bakery business contributes a notable portion to it. This changing role of the bakery business in India is multifaceted. It is developing fast as people all over the world are becoming more health-conscious. The bakery industry has improved on its equipment as well as ingredients to lure the consumer with a promise to provide a better, nutritive, healthy, and affordable product.

The bakery business has considerable scope for additional investment and employment. In India, there are over 95,000 bakeries ranging from the very small corner bakeries to large wholesale/commercial bakery chains, which is very less as compared to developed countries. The bakery industry, therefore, hold a tremendous scope for investment as well as employment.

How to Establishment Bakery Unit 

Similar to any other unit, establishing a bakery unit also needs thorough and wise planning on size, location, design, equipment, and machinery, and finances thereby. Following are some essentials for planning unit:

Site selection for a bakery unit:

The site should be selected where raw materials are easily available. The less distance between the unit and market decreases transportation costs as well as production costs.

Availability of potable water, electricity, transportation facility, communication facility, hospitals and waste disposal is another important requirement.

The selected site should have enough scope for future expansion of the unit.

Space requirement and design:

Space and design of a unit influence its erection cost, operating and maintenance cost, safety and convenience efficiency etc.

The volume of production in any unit is the major deciding factor. It is desirable to have at least 400 cubic feet of the space for every person employed not considering more than 14′ height from the floor. However, about 1200 sq. ft. production area may be required to produce 3000 bread loaves for of 400g each or an assorted production (bread, cookies, cakes, pastries etc.) from bags of flour each of 90 kg (Kamaliya and Shubhash, 2004)

The unit can be single storied or multi-storied depending upon the space available and production planned. However, each unit should be equipped with a storeroom for raw materials, equipment room, working platforms, rooms and bathrooms for workers etc.

Fire fighting facilities, first aid arrangements, washing, and sanitary facilities should be provided.

There should be proper arrangement for light, ventilation, temperature, and humidity control.

Bakery machinery and equipment

Consideration of the production target is important before the purchase of equipment and machinery. The amount and kind of daily production will be helpful in deciding the capacity, type, and size of the equipment and machinery required.

It is advisable to purchase sturdy, long-lasting, maintenance-free machines with minimum power requirements.

Selection for ovens in a bakery unit should be evaluated as per the fuel material required i.e., firewood, LPG or any other. It is advisable to correlate it with the production target e.g., the cost of daily food should be manageable with the cost of production and sale.

Essential equipment for baking i.e., mixer, oven, slicer etc. (depending on the product prepared) should be purchased first and other equipment like sheeter, prover and proofing assembly, packaging machines etc., can be purchased in due course with more money coming in. Hence, a well-planned and -established bakery unit will help in saving time, energy and resources thereby yielding profits.

Material for bakery business

Flour: Wheat flour is the major ingredient used in a bakery unit. Amongst all cereal flours, wheat flour is unique in that when mixed with water in correct amount, its protein will form an elastic dough, which is capable of holding gas, and will set to a spongy structure when heated in an oven. The hard spring and hard winter wheat are the types most desirable for bread production. They mill well and yield good quality protein, from which strong, elastic dough can be made with proper development. These doughs have good tolerance to bake conditions with respect to mixing, fermentation temperature, etc, and have excellent gas holding properties and yield bread with good volume, grain and texture under a wide range of conditions.

Yeast: This vital element upon which the baker is so dependent is an oval-shaped, one-celled, colourless microscopic plant named Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The yeast action results in the formation and migration of carbon-di-oxide culminating in a network of cellular compartments occupying about 120 cubic inches per pound of the loaf, to lighten or raise the dough, thereby improving greatly its ultimate palatability.

In its secondary role yeast alters the physical properties of dough especially gluten elasticity through the powerful stretching action generated by diffusion and accumulation of carbon-di-oxide throughout the dough.

Water: Water is an essential dough ingredient in all-processing industries. It is necessary to add water to the dough to form the gluten which is the matrix of bread doughs, starch-swelling process and to bring the dough ingredient into ultimate contact with each other so that the complex reactions of bread making can take place.

Moreover, the water is a compositional part of other ingredients like yeasts, flour, milk solids etc, none of which is dry in strict sense but which contain water that will eventually become part of the dough.

Water that is too soft can result in sticky dough because of the absence of gluten tightening minerals, too hard water may retard fermentation to a certain extent by toughening gluten. This adverse effect can be corrected by modifying the water supply or by increasing the yeast levels and decreasing dough improvers.

Milk and milk derivatives: Certain changes occur when milk solids are added to the dough. These changes manifest themselves at different times and in different manners. Properly processed non-fat dry milk appears to act as a strengthening agent for the flour proteins. During fermentation, there is a definite increase in dough acidity. The addition of non-fat dry milk to dough will usually slow down the acid development resulting in lower acidities than with corresponding water dough throughout the entire fermentation period. Non-fat dry milk has been recognized as contributing to a golden brown crust colour of finished baked bread. Toasting qualities are somewhat improved in milk bread than water bread. The grain and texture of finished bread are also improved by the use of nonfat dry milk. A soft velvety texture and a grain of small uniform cells characterize the crumb of milk bread.

The higher moisture content of milk bread permits it to remain soft for longer periods than bread made without milk and therefore it has apparently longer keeping quality.

Shortenings: Shortenings are essential ingredients of most of the bakery products. Shortening may be a single fat or oil or a combination of several fats and oils. There are certain properties that are considered desirable and sought in all processed shortenings i.e.,

  • White and clear appearance
  • Bland flavour
  • Oxidative stability
  • Good plasticity

Sugars: The sugars used in baked products are of various types, which include;

  • Sucrose naturally present in flour
  • Added sugars
  • Maltose
  • Polysaccharide
  • Lactose

Yeasts must get a source of fermentable carbohydrates to produce properly leavened dough and for development of characteristic fermentation flavour of bread. Sugars influence the yield of bread obtained from a given amount of dough because it makes possible an adjustment in baking temperature and time to produce loaves of high original moisture.

Eggs: A wide variety of egg solids products have been developed and are available commercially for specialized application in bakery business. Standard whole egg solids are used in cookies, layers and others where the functional role of eggs does not include primary leavening or foam formation although when properly formulated such applications may be possible. There are at least six functions performed by eggs in cakes and similar products:

  • Binding action
  • Leavening action
  • Emulsifying action
  • Flavour
  • Colour and
  • Nutritive value

Miscellaneous:

— Malt products: Malt is prepared from cereal grain usually barley. Malt products available to bakery business are malt flour, malt syrup, and dried malt syrup. Both diastatic and non-diastatic malt contain considerable quantities of sugars including maltose that is fermented by bakers yeast late in bread making process when glucose and fructose are absent.

— Cocoa and products: Chocolate is prepared from seeds of an evergreen tree of genus theobroma. Cocoa is chocolate from which a substantial proportion of fatty material has been removed.

— Dough improvers: Theses products are usually mixture of several inorganic salts together with starch or flour as an extender. Most of them contain ingredients having the following functions:

— Gluten oxidizing agents such as potassium bromate, potassium iodate or calcium peroxide.

— Calcium salts usually phosphates or sulphates, which correct any lack of hardness in dough water and provide a certain small amount of additional buffering action to partially offset usually alkaline conditions of the water.

— Ammonium salts to supply nitrogen in a form, which can be used by yeast for protein building.

— Enzyme preparations: Fungal proteases act on the dough by breaking down flour proteins and mellowing effect on dough results. Fungal amylases provide a means of adding necessary starch digesting properties to dough without adding any flavour and colour of malt. Enzymatically, soy flour is used in commercial preparations of active bread. It results in flavour enhancement of bread by soy enzymes.

Types of bakery products

There are many bakery products that grade one into another in their formulas, methods of preparation, and product characteristics. According to the leavening process used, bakery products can be classified as follows:

  • Yeast leavened: It includes bread and sweet dough leavened by carbon-di-oxide from yeast fermentation.
  • Chemically leavened: Cakes, doughnuts, and biscuits raised by carbon-di-oxide produced by baking powder and other chemicals.
  • Air leavened: Sponge cakes and angel cakes made without adding baking powder.
  • Partially leavened foods: Piecrusts, crackers, and other items where no leavening agent is added intentionally in hot oven.

Some of such products are discussed as under;

  1. Bread: It is strictly a mixture of cereal and water cooked to a reasonably fixed shape. The yeast provides the necessary aeration in this product.
  2. Biscuits: Biscuits are one of the oldest bakery items known. The necessary leavening is carried out by baking powder.
  3. Cakes: It is sweet snack food, leavened by baking powder, and contains more moisture than biscuits.
  4. Pastry: It is soft, tender, sponge cake pieces intact with the layering of cream as stuffing.

Value addition of bakery products

There is tremendous scope to add value to the bakery business. Popularization of bakery mixes, frozen batters, and doughs, pre-baked and ready-to-eat products are a few of them.

Mixes are simple and easy to use, many times requiring only the addition of water and single-stage mixing to provide quality products that would otherwise require more cautious handling and care. There are basically following five types of mixes available:

  1. Those leavened by chemicals for use in making doughnuts, cakes, muffins, etc.
  2. Those leavened by yeasts for use in making bread, rolls, buns, yeast-raised doughnuts, etc.
  3. Those leavened by aeration with or without the addition of chemicals acting as leavening such as those used for making foam type products including sponge cakes etc.
  4. Those leavened with chemicals and flavoured with fermentation products from yeasts such as instant bread mix etc.
  5. Non-leavened bread mixes such as piecrusts.

Advantages

  • Uniformity in the product, used every time
  • Simple and convenient to handle.
  • Low cost and economical
  • Labour saving and time-saving
  • Hygienic

Disadvantages

  • The dusty nature of the bakery product may reduce the yield or alter the preparation.
  • Needs careful handling in typical seasons especially when lumps are formed.
  • As the ingredients are not added in the recommended order the final product may deviate from the standard.

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