We think of factories producing iPhones, IKEA flatpacks and Infinitis, and as ID'ers we have an idea of what those production lines look like. But chances are you've never been inside a factory that makes cakes and desserts. Unifiller Systems, Inc. is a company that creates cake-decorating machines and food processing equipment, and their "sizzle reel" is pretty fascinating:
Once you've seen those machines above in action, it makes sense that circular cakes would be filled and iced on a turntable. But how do they get the filling into rectangular cakes, which don't have rotational symmetry? Surprisingly, for sheet cakes they use a "split and fill" technology that slices the cake horizontally while simultaneously injecting the filling (see it in action around 0:28):
In that vid you probably caught a glimpse of that tablet the guy was scrawling on, with the robot arm copying his lines onto a cake. That machine's called the Unibot, and it's how they achieve that handwritten look with icing:
I bet the hardest part about working at Unifiller is stopping yourself from constantly licking the icing off of the machine nozzles between squirts.
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As to the temptation to lick the nozzles. Near my college there was a chocolate factory, and a lot of kids worked there. The factory had an enlightened policy: you could eat as much chocolate as you wanted. Everyone ate a lot their first few days on the job. Then never touched another piece. Genius management, we all agreed.
Maybe there was comfort in the repetition, but i think I also liked the fact that complicated things could be made so easily.
Keep em coming Rain!