Baking & Snack - May 2009 - 100

102

PIZZA PROCESSING

by pulling it with his fingers. "The
Cross-Relaxer has a corkscrewshaped roller that as it rotates underneath the dough gently massages
it upwards and outwards toward
the outer sides of the belt to release
some of the tension in the dough," he
explained. "It gently creates a nice
consistent dough width."
Rondo provides pizza crust lines
with inline intermediate proofing
chambers that hold dough for up to
40 minutes. "This option gives the
possibility to improve the flavor formation and quality of frozen pizzas,"
said Jerry Murphy, president, Rondo,
Inc., Moonachie, NJ. "Additionally,
because of the relaxing of the dough
prior to cutting, the crusts will not
shrink materially."
The company also offers a coldpress machine to create high-rimmed
pizzas, similar to Italian handmade
bistro-style pizzas, according to Mr.
Murphy. "Rondo has developed a
device to form the pizza crust after
proofing before eventual topping
and that device not only presses the
crust but simulates the action of
the human hands, thus obtaining a
better effect," he added.
Fritsch USA, Cedar Grove, NJ,
provides dough systems that gently handle the dough and offer the
processor greater flexibly. The satellite head on its sheeting equipment
gently reduces the dough sheet to the
requested dough thickness and does
not compress the dough's structure.
Because some processors do not
want to be as aggressive with the
dough and may have an extra reduction station, pizza crust lines are often a little longer than they have been
in the past, according to Mr. Riggle.
Rademaker offers independently
driven die-cut systems for forming
crusts. "The reason we drive them
separately is if you adjust the cutter faster or slower, you are able to
compensate for shrinkage of the
dough," he said. In addition to offering a single-drive system in which an
operator must perform a quick dis-

BAKING & SNACK / May 2009

connect to remove the die roller anytime the plant wants to change sizes,
Rademaker manufactures a carousel
system that holds up to six different
cutters, and the correct cutter rotates
into place when the operator makes a
selection on the PLC. "We can make
a line in which an operator has to do
everything, or we make fully automated lines, where all the processes
can be saved to a PLC, and the operator simply has to push a button for
the product he needs to run at the
control panel, and all the gauging
stations will automatically adjust to
the right gap thicknesses."
Rademaker also manufactures
a hot press that can be used for
extending the size of sheeted die-cut
crusts. Mr. Riggle explained that its
press is not designed to be used with
dough balls that require an intermediate proof prior to the press and
may require a lot of oil.
TARGETING TOPPINGS. Because a
lot of new toppings are being placed
on pizzas, Mr. Riggle pointed out

ᮡ A mobile topping unit can be rolled into a
conveying line and put into action. The customized paddles on the carousel keep toppings from
being dispensed between lanes of pizza shells.
RAQUE FOOD SYSTEMS

that this has created a whole new set
of challenges for equipment manufacturers. "Putting pepperoni or
sausage and frozen onions and green
peppers onto a pizza is fairly simple,
but when you get into some of these
other items such as caramelized onions, to be quite honest, a lot of them
are put on by hand," he said. "They
cannot be automated."
However, Rademaker is working to develop equipment to handle
these kind of toppings. And it already
offers a machine that is able to place
drier, harder, coarser cheeses such as
Parmesan and asiago, which pizza
processors are using more often on
their products rather than just mozzarella, according to Mr. Riggle.
Because toppings are more expensive, he said pizza manufacturers do

Baking & Snack - May 2009

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