Finsbury Foods leads the gluten-free market with another bread plant installation
With their wealth of technical and scientific product knowledge, UCB has been able to exploit a gap in the market for gluten-free bread, adding to the stranglehold they have gained in the niche “free-from” market.
In 2008, UCB was engaged by Genius to manufacture its new fresh gluten-free bread product. Archy Cunningham, UCB’s Managing Director, recognised this as a valuable addition to his “free-from” portfolios which include pitta bread, naan bread, crumpet and pizza bases.
The great innovation of the Genius product is that it is fresh, and that in taste and texture very similar to standard bread with an 8 day shelf life, compared with the average gluten-free 28 day product on the market. Cunningham could see that within his 100,000ft² facility this pioneering product would perfectly complement UCB’s product portfolio and be a key factor in its growth strategy.
UCB and Genius embarked upon a journey together to develop a product for factory scale production and UCB invested in a state-of-the-art continuous bread plant with the tried and tested HAAS-MEINCKE consortium headed by SOLLICH (UK) LIMITED.
SOLLICH UK, and their European principals, had previously worked closely with UCB following the fire supplying them with a plant to get the facility back up and running, installation of which was completed in a remarkable 7 months. SOLLICH UK was Cunningham’s first port of call with his enquiry for the new Genius bread plant. Together, Cunningham, his trusty General Manager Ronnie Stebbings and Sollich agreed the specification and installation accordingly.
The fully automated continuous bread plant was tailor made to UCB’s requirements. SANCASSIANO spiral mixers feed a BVT BAKERY SERVICES BV bread plant including a Paternoster Prover for a one hour proving period, feeding a 3.5m wide HAAS‑MEINCKE convection oven. Post baking, the loaves are automatically depanned by a BVT needle depanner. The tins are then automatically cooled, greased and returned to the depositor for more dough.
UCB has also purchased a second identical HAAS-MEINCKE oven for their sister company Nicholas & Harris in Salisbury.