Core77

Watching Cakes Being Mass Manufactured is Mesmerizing

By Rain Noe - August 20, 2014

in Food

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.

o

Favorite This
Q
2

Comment

Comments

Ken

10 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

And when I was a kid, my dad used to stop in food factories that we drove by in our summer travels, and many of them had tours. Ever see a pretzel tying machine in action? Wow.

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.
!Report as spam
jt

10 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I love this stuff. When I was a kid, I used to watch Mr. Rogers. The most relaxing part of that show was when he used to tour the factories and show all the repetitive actions of what ever was going down the conveyor belt.

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!
!Report as spam