Objective
The European market for bread and other baked goods is large and mature and des pite favourable economic conditions and trends toward premium priced products, the commodity nature of most bread products, continues to place significant cos t pressures on manufacturers. Hence, the reduction of manufacturing costs and i ntroduction of cost effective quality improvements is key to the commercial bak ers' efforts to remain profitable. One of the largest areas for potential savin gs and quality improvements relates to the potential to replace the current use of remotely generated steam to create increased humidity environments in the ' wet' section of the process, with a more controllable and energy efficient medi a method. Commercial bakeries currently use a centralised high pressure stea m generation and distribution system to produce the water vapour atmosphere wit hin the wet section of the oven. This method is highly inefficient, and yield s poor control over processing conditions, in comparison to most industrial mat erials processing technologies. Indeed, it is commonly accepted by commercial b akers that the energy losses using this method are excessive but unavoidable. W ork carried out by ETSU (The Energy Technical Support Unit ), confirmed that th e energy used to generate vapour in commercial bakery ovens currently accounts for 25%-40% of the total used in the process. Up to 50% of this figure is subse quently lost in generation and transfer inefficiencies. For a typical large tra velling oven rated at 7000 loaves per hour, the energy loss equates to 23,O00 E CU per year. Scaled up to the European level, the potential losses are between 50 and 100 M ECU, representing an energy content of 6000 to 1000 Tera Joules pe r annum. In addition, the use of steam to provide an increased humidity environ ment during the 'wet' section of the process is far from ideal as it is difficu lt to control and does not promote the crucial reactions within the dough, as e fficiently as an atomised water spray potentially could achieve, resulting in a verage reject rates of 1-5 % within some baking processes. In supplying sub- systems to the large OE;M oven vendors and providing retrofit oven process impr ovements direct to the market, the opportunity to adapt and transfer materials processing and process control technology has been identified from more industr ial sectors. In particular, we have developed an innovative bakery process conc ept that could avoid most of these losses and improve process control by direct ly injecting water vapour into a controlled environment created within the wet section of the process. Across the EU there are around 2500 SME's who, provi de process sub-systems and components directly to the bakers in Europe through retrofit modifications to existing plant and indirectly through the companies s upplying new ovens. There are an estimated 6000 static bakery ovens and a furth er 2000 travelling (conveyor) ovens across the EU that could benefit from a ret rofitted version of our proposed development. The domestic European market f or new ovens was measured in 1995 at 200 MECU/pa, and predicted to rise by 25 % by the year 2000. If the proposed technology were to be developed and subsequ ently transferred into the domestic SME supply base for new and retrofit equipm ent, SME bakers themselves could potentially generate energy savings of up betw een 50 and 100MECU/pa, in the operation of more energy efficient and more accur ately controlled plant.
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
CT5 3QU WHITSTABLE
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.