SPECIAL REPORT
iba Bakery Tour: Wback GmbH
TONNES OF
BUNS
Wback’s newest automated line in central
Germany consistently turns out 50,000 buns an
by Dan Malovany
start up,” Mr. Kugler admitted. “But the new production line here in Bönen was fantastic.”
By the millions
Overall, Wback’s high-performance lines crank out
up to 3 million buns a day for QSR chains and privatelabel retail customers throughout most of Western
Europe. Located in the Rhineland about an hour’s
drive from Düsseldorf ’s airport, the Bönen bakery
makes 2 million buns daily primarily for customers
in central and northern Germany, The Netherlands,
Belgium and northern France. Meanwhile, its
Leipheim facility — with its single bun line — serves
Bavaria and southern Germany as well as Austria,
Italy and a portion of France.
Part of what makes Wback so successful is its commitment to consistency and its streamlined product
portfolio. It makes just soft buns and rolls — including 4-in., 5-in. and seeded hamburger buns as well as
regular and extra-long, 7-in. hot dog buns. “We focus
on buns and being the best we can with those,” Mr.
Kugler said.
Planning for the new line began in 2013 about
six months before breaking ground for the nearly
cross-functional team at Wback collaborated closely
with its vendors, primarily Global Bakery Solutions
(GBS) and Stewart-Systems, which drew up no less
for the project. “We had worked with most of our ven-
BAKERY TOUR
F
For Wback GmbH, one of Europe’s leading industrial
baking companies, the third time was the charm when
in 2014 it started up its latest high-speed bun operation at its 60,000-sq-ft facility in Bönen, Germany.
Although the company commissioned the line
more than a year ago, Norbert Kugler, chief engineer,
recently remembered it as if it happened yesterday.
Why wouldn’t he? “The first day on April 13, we ran
test doughs,” Mr. Kugler recalled. “On April 14, we
were selling product.” He paused for a second, maybe
to add a little emphasis, and then uttered just three
words: “Just one day,” along with a big grin.
Such a smooth start-up didn’t happen by chance,
although any engineer will admit that it takes a little
luck — and a lot of coordination — to get such an
automated line up and running, especially one that
now produces more than 830 buns a minute or 50,000
buns an hour.
According to Mr. Kugler, experience from lessons
learned paved the smooth trail. As the company’s brochure states, “Once you’ve learned something, you
don’t forget it.”
In 2005, when starting up its first 50,000-buns-anhour line at the Bönen bakery, where the company is
also headquarted, he noted it took two weeks of testing before Wback was able to produce salable buns for
the market. Three years later, the company opened up
its second bakery — again a similar line with 50,000
buns an hour capacity — in the city of Leipheim in
southern Germany. “Leipheim also took some time to
www.bakingandsnack.com / July 2015 Baking & Snack 29
IBA BAKERY TOUR: WBACK GMBH
History in the remaking
Wback GmbH is a relatively new company
with deep bakery roots among its management team. Peter Wendeln and his partners
founded the company in 2003.
Mr. Wendeln may not be a household name
in North America, but his family has been
described as a dynasty in the German baking
industry. In fact, the Wendeln Group had been
considered Germany’s leading producer of
prepackaged bread, pastries and cakes — as
well as a major supplier of buns to quickservice chains — with a storied history dating
back decades. In 1999, it was purchased by a
rival baking company, Kamps AG. However,
it didn’t take long for Mr. Wendeln to get back
into the baking industry.
In a little more than 10 years, Wback has
grown from scratch into a rapidly expanding business with a more than €49 million
(US$56 million) in annual sales. In 2013, a
majority interest in the company was sold
to Halder, a European private equity firm,
through a management buyout.
Today, Mr. Wendeln remains a minority
interest partner in Wback.
For more information on the company, go
to www.wback.de.
dors in the past, which made everything easier,” he said.
From the start, Mr. Kugler noted, much of the focus
targeted heightening hygiene standards and streamlining sanitation as well as integrating process controls that
monitor all aspects on the production line. The bakery is IFS (International Featured Standard) certified as
part of the Global Food Safety Initiative for auditing food
manufacturers.
Nearly all utilities and electronics, he pointed out, are located on a mezzanine level above the ceiling to reduce the
time for sanitation and protect the sensitive systems during
cleaning. Only operating panels or touchscreen controls can
be found on the production floor. The bakery also relies on
a Baro disinfection system to provide purified air through its
central ventilation system. In addition to easing sanitation,
Mr. Kugler pointed out, the design of the facility enhances
food safety and quality control.
Likewise, he observed, Wback worked with vendors
to apply the latest standards in sanitary design to its new
Above: Wback’s ingredient handling system supplies its new high-speed mixer with
precise accuracy for product quality. Below: The bakery uses the Chorleywood mixing
process that’s preferred in many parts of Europe for making hamburger and hot dog buns.
30 Baking & Snack July 2015 / www.bakingandsnack.com
equipment. When possible, engineers replaced flat
or square surfaces with sloped, angled or inclined
ones to prevent flour from building up and for easy
removal during maintenance and cleaning. Even the
new GBS high-speed mixer sits on an angled platform
to control vibration and prevent water from seeping
between the mixer and the floor.
Not only clean … lean
According to Mr. Kugler, the new bun line is so technologically advanced that it takes only four people — including a shift supervisor — to operate it. An additional
12 employees per shift handle finished buns and rolls
in the centralized packaging department, which serves
both production lines.
In all, 103 employees — including office personnel —
work in the Bönen bakery. Four shifts — two on each
line — operate up to 10 days straight before the facility shuts down for cleaning and preventive maintenance.
That process typically takes only two shifts before the
bakery is up and running again.
During Baking & Snack’s tour of the facility earlier
this year, Mr. Kugler took time to highlight the similarities and differences of the two lines — specifically noting
how they are integrated in the front in ingredient handling and in the back in packaging.
Software from an AZO ingredient handling system
controls formulas and metering of wet and dry ingredients prior to mixing. Bulk systems include three
60-tonne flour silos and one 30-tonne salt silo as well
as two 30,000-liter tanks — one for liquid sugar and another for soybean oil. Four AZO 30,000-liter cream yeast
systems feed the two production lines.
An AZO liquid sour system combines flour, water,
yeast, sugar and oil into three tanks to create the sponge.
After two hours of fermentation, the 32°C sponge passes
through a heat exchanger that reduces its temperature to
5°C. The batch is then transferred to one of two holding
tanks. “Those two tanks serve both lines,” Mr. Kugler observed. “As one empties, the other gets ready to continue
production.”
Wback relies on GBS high-speed mixers on both
lines. Employing the high-speed Chorleywood process,
the mixers take only 4 to 5 minutes to create 370-kg
batches. “The difference is that we mix to energy, not
time,” Mr. Kugler observed. “We check the watts per
kilo to determine when the dough is complete.”
For buns, the predetermined target is 10.5 watt
hours per kg — or about 3,800 watt hours per batch.
The mixer uses chilled water if the incoming flour temperature is too warm. “With this process, we always
have the same dough quality,” he added.
It takes 14 batches to produce 50,000 buns an hour.
Wback prides itself on producing consistent, high-quality buns in a sanitary,
food-safe environment. Here, on the brand new line in Germany, more than 800
buns leave the oven per minute — or more than 50,000 an hour.
After the mixer discharges the dough, it tumbles into
an AMF dough pump. To reduce shear, the new dough
pump on Line No. 2 is Teflon-coated while the older
model on the original line is stainless steel.
The dough is then pumped into an AMF HBDFlex
six-pocket divider with a twin-screw “vector” extrusion system, which consistently feeds the metering
manifold. Servo-controlled metering pumps accurately portion the dough pieces. The line relies on a
recipe-driven setup to expedite changeovers.
From dividing, the dough pieces travel through
rounder bars and a flour duster, then into an intermediate proofer for 2.5 minutes. The bakery typically
uses four rounder bars for hot dog buns and six for
hamburger buns. To reduce labor, a Burford Orbital
Pan Shaker automatically aligns the pieces before the
pans travel into a Stewart Systems dual-spiral proofer
with the latest control package.
After passing through an optional Burford Smart
Seeder or water splitter, the pans enter the Stewart
System conveyorized oven with a low-profile, doubleloop design to provide what Mr. Kugler described as a
seamless bake at a consistent temperature. Buns bake
consistently across the pan for 7.5 to 9 minutes at
255°C, with the time depending on the product variety.
Before vacuum depanning, a GBS system provides
www.bakingandsnack.com / July 2015 Baking & Snack 31
a burst of air to separate the buns from the pan and
minimize rejects and waste. On the new line, the
GBS depanner is also enclosed to provide enhanced
sanitation.
After a GBS robotic system rotates the pans 90°,
they head into a Rexfab pan inverter-cleaner — one of
the first in Europe, according to Mr. Kugler. Two pans
glide onto a two-sided magnetic inverter that rotates
and flips them upside down. With a brush and a blast
of air, seeds, buns and other debris fall to a collection
area, also called a recycle bin. While that process is
happening, two more pans are loaded onto the top
of the inverter. As the cleaned pans are rotated, the
next set of pans gets cleaned. Afterward, pans travel
through a GBS pan cooler for 50 seconds to reduce
their temperature before returning to makeup.
For changeovers, a GBS robotic pan stacker and unstacker picks up 12 pans at a time to unload and feed
the system and streamline the transition from one bun
variety to another. Mr. Kugler pointed out the gentle
magnetic system minimizes pan damage.
The buns then travel on Intralox belts, used
throughout most of the bakery — including the GBS
spiral cooler — for their ease of sanitation. After cooling, a long line of buns heads into the packaging area
and travels down to GHD Hartmann slicers and pillow packers. Mettler Toledo X-ray systems then detect
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To avoid the hassle and long lines at
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Any vouchers for day tickets can be
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In addition to purchasing tickets, the
iba 2015 website offers travel information, including available hotels, advice
on arriving in Munich and excursions
around Bavaria. Computers, tablets
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For more information on iba, go to
www.iba.de/en.
not only for metal but also for other foreign matter.
The pillow packs are placed in baskets or boxes then
stacked or palletized automatically using Transnova
RUF robotic systems.
As far as the company’s future, Mr. Kugler suggested that the final chapter hasn’t been written, although
he declined to go into details. For Wback, the ultimate goal involves “making good things better.”
As the company notes in its literature, “We want to
be the very best. No more and no less.”
•
After depanning, hamburger buns travel along a spiral cooler prior to entering
the centralized packaging department.
Buns are bulk packaged for foodservice, then automatically placed in baskets or boxes. Here, a robot
stacks baskets to be palletized in the streamlined central packaging department.
www.bakingandsnack.com / July 2015 Baking & Snack 33