In food production plants, many different foods need toppings. Of course, one of the most prominent products that need toppings are pizzas, prepared meals, and even salads. However, you can also use toppings applicators for pies, cakes, and more. Any production line that needs seasonings or any kind of toppings can see the benefit of using a topping applicator. This process manually is much more complicated than it may seem. Applying toppings to a portion of food in a uniform and clean manner is challenging to do by hand, and often the toppings spill, wasting product. Machines that apply toppings are helpful and save time, money, and products. Even specialized machines can ensure that toppings are placed in a particular area. These machines are essential to a mechanized and well-organized production chain.
Pizza Production
The cost of making pizzas is a great example to understand how topping applicators cut costs for your production facility. Pizza production depends on many different machines, but arguably the most important machine is the one that dispenses toppings. The cost of making pizza has a lot to do with ensuring nothing goes to waste and that every pizza is as uniform as possible. Many machines can be used in the production of pizzas, but with the ability to calculate production costs, it can be simple to see the ROI on pizza equipment. Several different kinds of machines also aid in cutting costs and ensuring uniformity among pizzas in a production facility.
Circle Placers
One of the first steps in pizza production that can be automated is placing the cardboard circles on a conveyor belt. This takes so much time manually, so having a machine that dispenses and places the pizza circles saves time and money for pizza production.
Sauce Applicators
Once the dough has been placed, the sauce is one of the most challenging things to put on a pizza. In a food production facility, manually setting the sauce on the pizza can make a big difference. It gets messy, and it is hard to ensure uniformity. The sauce is also the most significant liability regarding the cost of making pizza. If it gets placed wrong, or if there is too much sauce, it can make the pizza unsalvageable. This means fewer pizzas that make it through production and more that are thrown away. If the sauce is put on the pizzas perfectly every time, it saves many later steps.
Dry Ingredient Applicators
Typically, the final step in most production lines involves the dry ingredient applicators. This is tricky. There are spices, seeds, granules, and other things that need to go on pizzas. This machine makes it so simple. A machine like this is similar to cheese and topping applicators but is meant for more minor ingredients.
Meat Slicers
Many argue that the most essential part of a pizza is the meat. Pepperoni is a classic pizza topping that must often be placed on the pizzas before or after the cheese. This topping is a bit difficult to apply manually, as it is hard to ensure that people put the right amount of slices uniformly. If they aren’t sliced automatically, slicing them the same thickness every time is also problematic. Meat slicers are very useful, as they can also cut other ingredients. This is a cost-effective machine that many plants want to purchase. This has a great return if you want a good ROI on pizza equipment.
Cheese and Topping Applicators
What would a pizza be without cheese? This step is crucial. The topping applicator machines are so helpful in the pizza-making process. These machines are designed with a waterfall product application. This waterfall-style application helps save waste, as it recirculates and keeps cheese or other ingredients that do not make it onto the pizzas.
The product reclaim system makes it so the cheese or other frozen toppings are caught and placed back into the feed so that nothing goes to waste. This is extremely important in the cost of making pizza because each ingredient makes a difference. If each ingredient costs one penny, and one falls off of every pizza and isn’t recycled, a facility could lose hundreds of dollars per day, depending on their production levels. If ingredients are consistently wasted by falling on the floor or not being recycled if they fall off the pizza, that may seem like a little bit of money, but over time it adds up.
Uniformity in the Cost of Making Pizza
So why does it matter if the pizzas are uniform? It makes a lot of difference. First, you can more accurately calculate production costs by ensuring that each pizza is the same. If each pizza has ten pepperonis which cost 10 cents each, you will know how much pepperoni you will need to make 100 pizzas and how much they will cost. This gets thrown off when there is a random number of pepperonis on each pizza. Another important aspect is that you have to be able to know your calorie counts. With product uniformity, you can be as accurate as possible for consumers and the FDA.
Pizza Equipment for Your Production
If you want the maximum ROI on pizza equipment, look no further. Contact us here at Quantum, and we will help you choose the perfect machines to produce safe, clean, and uniform products.