IE73655B1 - A cookie manufacturing process - Google Patents

Abstract

A cookie manufacturing process has ingredient materials delivered from storage hoppers (10) to a weighing vessel (11) and then to a mixing vessel (15) to form a dough. This dough is extruded and cut into cookie shapes at a cookie forming station (24), the cookie shapes being dropped onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt passes through a continuous oven (34) to bake the cookie shapes to form cookies. At an outlet of the oven (34) a leveller (36) is provided to flatten the top surface of the cookies as the conveyor belt passes under the leveller (36) to produce cookies of substantially uniform thickness. The cookies are then cooled in air on an elongate conveyor belt (41) and then delivered to a packing station (55).

Description

736 5 5^,,,,,59405^ - 1 - "A Cookie Manufacturing Process" This invention relates to a cookie manufacturing process.

Cookies by their nature then to have a somewhat irregularshape. This presents problems in relation to handlingand packaging the cookies particularity with automated 5 machinery, and relatively high wastage can occur.

The present invention is directed towards providing animproved process and apparatus for manufacturing cookiesin an efficient and trouble-free manner.

According to the invention there is provided a cookie 10 manufacturing process, comprising the steps : delivering selected ingredients from associated storagehoppers to a weighing vessel, weighing out a presetdesired weight of each ingredient material anddischarging said material to a mixing vessel; 15 mixing the ingredient materials in the mixing vessel to form a dough; feeding the dough from the mixing vessel to a cookieforming station, the dough being fed to a dough hopperat the cookie forming station; 20 extruding the dough from the dough hopper through a number of tubular outlets onto a conveyor belt, cuttingthe dough with a wire cutter into cookie shapescorresponding to the tubular outlets at a discharge endof each outlet; 25 leading the cookie shapes on the conveyor through a continuous oven, regulating the conditions of 73655 - 2 - temperature and humidity within the oven and speed oftravel through the oven to cook the cookie shapes toform cookies; delivering the cookies on a conveyor belt from anoutlet of the oven to a levelling station adjacent theoven outlet, the levelling station having a levellerspaced a preset distance above a top surface of theconveyor belt to engage and flatten a top surface ofthe cookies as the conveyor belt passes beneath theleveller to produce cookies of a substantially uniformthickness; cooling the cookies in air to set the cookies; delivering the set cookies to a packing station, andpackaging a preset desirable number of cookies inpacks .

In a further embodiment the process includes the steps offeeding the dough from the mixing vessel to the doughhopper on a dough feed conveyor extending between themixing vessel and the dough hopper, sensing the level ofdough in the dough hopper and regulating the speed of thedough feed conveyor in response to the sensed dough levelin the dough hopper.

In another embodiment the process includes the step ofarranging the cookies in a desired number of columns onthe cookie transfer conveyor up stream of the packingstation for feeding to the packing station by engaging thecookies with a number of rows of spaced-apart guide platesmounted above the conveyor belt and inclined relative toa longitudinal access of the conveyor. 3 In a further embodiment the packing station the processincludes the steps of feeding the cookies in a number ofcolumns on a forcing conveyor to a cookie collector,gathering sets of cookies each comprising a desired numberof cookies associated with a cookie pack in a number ofshoots in the collector, discharging the cookie sets ontoa wrapper in feed conveyor and delivering the cookie setson the wrapper in feed conveyor to a wrapping machine, andwrapping each cookie set in the wrapping machine to forma pack of cookies.

In one embodiment of the invention the cookies are cooledby transporting the cookies on an elongate cookie transferconveyor between the levelling station and the packingstation, the conveyor having at least two sections stackedone above the other, the conveyor sections having conveyorbelts with upper cookie carrying surfaces which travel inopposite directions, transferring cookies between a firstsection and a second section of the conveyor by engagingeach cookie with a rotating shaft mounted across an outletend of the first section and having a greater surfacespeed than the first section conveyor belt for projectingthe cookies outwardly of the outlet end of the firstsection to land with the same side up on the conveyor beltof the second section underneath.

In another embodiment the ingredient materials includegolden syrup and glucose syrup and the process includesthe steps of : delivering a quantity of golden syrup and glucose syrupin a preset desirable ratio to a syrup tank, blending the syrups together in the syrup tank for a preset time period to form a homogenous syrup blend, 4 discharging blended syrup from the syrup tank to asyrup weigher and weighing out a predesired amount ofblended syrup in the syrup weigher, and pumping the blended syrup from the weigher to themixing vessel.

In a particularly preferred embodiment the golden syrupand glucose syrup are blended in the ratio 3:1 by weight.

Ideally the process includes the step of regulating thetemperature of the blended syrup for maintaining the syrupwithin a preset desirable temperature range.

In a further embodiment the process includes the steps ofsensing the colour of the cookies at the outlet of theoven, and regulating the humidity and temperature withinthe oven and the speed of travel of cookie shapes throughthe oven in response to the sensed cookie colour toachieve a preset desired cookie condition at the outlet ofthe oven.

In another embodiment blocks of palm oil are used as aningredient material and the process includes the step ofgently heating the blocks of palm oil for softening theblocks of palm oil prior to adding the blocks to themixing vessel.

The invention will be more clearly understood by thefollowing description of an embodiment thereof, given byway of example only, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, in which :- Fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart illustrating a cookie manufacturing process according to the invention; 5 Fig. 2 is a perspective view of apparatus used in theprocess; Fig. 3 is a schematic illustration of the apparatusshown in Fig. 2; Fig. 4 is a perspective view of a cookie formingstation used in the process; Fig. 5 is a detail side section elevational view of thecookie forming station; Fig. 6 is a detail front elevational view showingportion of the cookie forming station; Fig. 7 is a perspective view of a leveller apparatusused in the process; Fig. 8 is a detail side elevational view of theleveller apparatus; Fig. 9 is a detail partial cut away perspective view ofa conveyor transfer apparatus used in the process; Fig. 10 is a detail side partially sectionalelevational view of the conveyor transfer apparatus; Fig. 11 A plan view of a cookie arranger for use in theprocess; Fig. 12 is a diagrammatic plan view of a packingstation for use in the process; Fig. 13 is a schematic illustration of an oven control system for use in the process. 6 Referring to the drawings and initially to Figs 1 to 9thereof a cookie manufacturing process and apparatusaccording to the invention will be described. Variousingredient materials, principally flour and granular sugar 5 are delivered from storage hoppers 10 to a weighing vessel 11. Palm oil in solid form is also delivered from a palmoil heater 12 to the weighing vessel 11. The palm oilheater 12 is a compartment with a heating element 14 togently raise the temperature of palm oil blocks to 22°C - 10 24°C in the heater 12 for softening the blocks of palm oil prior to delivery to the weighing vessel 11. Thissoftening advantageously facilitates improved mixing ofthe palm oil with the other ingredients downstream of theweighing vessel 11 in a mixing vessel 15. 15 Liquid sugar, in the form of golden syrup and glucosesyrup are also added to the mixing vessel 15. Goldensyrup and glucose syrup are blended in a syrup tank 16 inthe ratio 3:1 by weight. A pump 17 at an outlet of thetank 16 discharges blended syrup to a syrup weigher 18. 20 The syrup weigher 18 as a tank 19 suspended from acantilevered support 20 incorporating a load cell. Apreset desired amount of syrup is then weighed in thesyrup weigher 18 and delivered by a pump 21 at an outletof the syrup weigher 18 to the mixing vessel 15. Flexible 25 ρίρθ pieces 22 between the tank 19 and pump 21 accommodatevertical movement of the tank 19.

Within the mixing vessel 15 all the ingredient materialsare thoroughly mixed to form a dough. It will be notedthat the mixing vessel 15 has an outer thermal jacket. An 30 associated temperature controller within the mixing vessel regulates operation of the thermal jacket to maintain the temperature within the mixing vessel 15 within a preset desired temperature range in order to stabilise dough 7 viscosity. A PLC controls operation of the weighing andmixing.

The dough is discharged from the mixing vessel 15 to acookie forming station 24. Dough pieces 25 are fed fromthe mixing vessel 15 on a dough feed conveyor 25 anddropped through a funnel 27 into a dough hopper 28. Adough level sensor 29 is mounted on a side wall of thefunnel 27 to monitor the level of dough within the hopper26. Operation of the conveyor 26 is controlled inresponse to the sensed dough level in the dough hopper 28.Thus, advantageously a smooth feed of dough through thedough hopper 28 is achieved. If excessive dough isallowed to build up within the hopper 28 bridging of doughcan occur at rollers 30 within the hopper 28 interruptingthe flow of dough through the dough hopper 28. Further,advantageously there is no need to have an optivecontinuously at the dough hopper to monitor and ensureprogress of dough through the dough hopper 28.

The dough is passed between the rollers 30 and extrudedfrom the dough hopper 28 through a number of spaced-aparttubular outlets 31 onto a conveyor belt 32, the doughbeing cut with a wire cutter (not shown) into cookieshapes corresponding to the tubular outlets 31 at adischarge end of each outlet 31. Thus, rows of cut doughcookie shapes 33 are formed on the conveyor belt and areled by the conveyor belt 32 through a continuous oven 34for cooking the dough to form cookies. As the dough isdelivered through the oven 34 the temperature, humidityand bake time (controlled by conveyor speed) within theoven 34 are regulated to control the cooking and achievea desired cookie colour and moisture content at an outletof the oven 34. 8 ♦ 5 10 15 20 25 30 Cookies 35 discharged from the oven 34 are led by theconveyor 32 to a levelling station 36. The levellingstation 36 is shown in more detail in Figs. 7 and 8 andcomprises a leveller shaft 37 extending transverselyacross the conveyor belt 32 a preset distance above a topsurface 38 of the conveyor belt 32. As can be seen inFig. 8, cookies 35 discharged from the oven 34 have agenerally domed head 39. It will be noted that as thecookies 35 leave the oven 34, they are still relativelysoft and malleable. Thus, as the cookies 35 are carriedunder the leveller 37 a top surface of each cookie 35 isengaged and flattened by the leveller 37. Advantageously,the curved surface of the leveller 37 provides acontrolled and gentle flattening of the top surface ofeach cookie 35. Thus the cookies 35 downstream of theleveller 37 are of a substantially uniform thickness. Theleveller 37 is mounted between end supports 40 whichinclude means for vertical movement of the leveller 37 onthe end supports 40 for adjustment of the clearancebetween a bottom of the leveller 37 and the top surface 38of the conveyor belt 32. Advantageously, the leveller 37allows control of cookie thickness and also the flatteningof the top surface facilitates automated processing of thecookies for packaging.

Referring to Figs 9 and 10, downstream of the levellingstation 36 the cookies 35 are cooled in air bytransporting the cookies on an elongate cookie transferconveyor 41 between the levelling station 36 and a packingstation 55. In this case the conveyor 41 has two sectionsnamely an upper section 44 and a lower section 45 stackedone above the other to provide an elongate cooling pathfor the cookies 35 while minimising the space occupied bythe conveyor 41. It will be noted that the lower section45 has an inlet end 46 which projects outwardly of adischarge end 47 of the upper section 44. The conveyor 35 9 sections 44,45 have conveyor belts with upper cookiecarrying surfaces 48,49 which travel in oppositedirections. The cookies 35 are dropped off the end ofthe upper section 44 onto the lower section 45. Toprevent the cookies 35 from turning over as they drop offthe upper section 44, a rotating shaft 50 is mountedacross the discharge end 47 of the upper section 44 of theconveyor 41 to engage and project each cookie 35 outwardlyof the upper section 44 so that it lands upright with itsbottom face on the lower section 45 conveyor belt uppersurface 49. Thus, advantageously all the cookies 35 arefed to the packing station 55 in an upright position tofacilitate packing. The shaft 50 spins rapidly having agreater surface speed then the first section conveyorbelt.

Referring to Fig. 11, it will be noted that the cookies 35are feed on the lower conveyor section 45 towards thepacking station in the direction of arrow A in narrowlyspaced rows of cookies 35. It is necessary to reduce thenumber of columns of cookies 35 being feed to the packingstation 55. To facilitate this a number of sets of guideplates 52 are mounted spaced-apart above the top surface49 of the conveyor for engagement with the cookies 35.The number of guide plates 52 in each set corresponds tothe side number of columns of cookies 35 required. Itwill be noted that the guide plates 52 are inclinedrelative to a longitudinal access of the conveyor to catcha number of lines, in this case two lines, of cookies 35entering the guide plates 52 to reduce the two lines to asingle column of cookies. At least two sets of guideplates 52 are provided with alternative inclined inopposite directions. Preferable three sets of guideplates 52 are provided as shown in the drawing. It wouldbe appreciated that the guide plates 52 facilitate 10 arranging the cookies 35 in a desired number of columnsfor delivery to the packing station 55.

Referring to Fig. 12 a packing station 55 for use in theprocess is shown. Cookies are delivered in columns on aforcing conveyor 56 to a cookie collector 57. The forcingconveyor 56 has a conveyor belt which travels at a fasterrate than the cookies to keep the cookies closely togetherside by side as they are feed into the cookie collector57. A cookie collector 57 has a number of spaced-apartshoots 58 corresponding to each column of cookies forgathering a set of cookies 35 associated with a cookiepack in each shoot 58. Collected sets of cookies 35 aredischarged from the shoots 58 onto a wrapper in feedconveyor 59 which delivers the cookie sets to a wrappingmachine 60. Each cookie set is wrapped in the wrappingmachine 60 to form a pack of cookies. It will beappreciated that the forcing conveyor 56 and cookiecollector 57 facilitate the handling of the cookies 35 anarrangement of the cookies 35 in cookie sets eachcomprising a desired number of cookies associated with acookie pack. By adjustment of the shoot size the numberof cookies in each pack can be controlled.

Referring to Fig 13, advantageously a colour sensor 60 maybe provided at the outlet of the oven 34 to sense thecolour of the cookies at the outlet of the oven 34. Thiscolour sensor 60 together with oven humidity sensor 61,conveyor speed sensor 62 and oven temperature sensor 63are linked to a controller 65 for regulating the humidity,temperature and bake time (proportional to conveyor speed)within the oven 34 in response to the sensed cookie colourand oven humidity to achieve a desired cookie colour andmoisture content at the outlet of the oven 34. 11 For each cookie type a three-dementia1 desiredcharacteristic or map is stored within the controller 65.The axes of this three-demential map comprise of productcolour, oven humidity, and oven conveyor speed. Throughuse of the humidity sensor 61, colour sensor 60 and speedsensor 62 the controller 65 can determine how the actualproduct being produced compares with the desiredcharacteristic and if necessary regulate adjustment of anoven graft control damper 66, temperature setting 67 oroven conveyor speed 68 as appropriate to achieve thedesired characteristic. It will be appreciated that theprocess and apparatus according to the inventionfacilitates the achievement of an improved quality andconsistency in a cookie product. Furthermore, reliableautomated handling and packaging of cookies can be carriedout, thus minimising wastage and down time and promotingmore efficient manufacturing.

The invention is not limited to the embodimentshereinbefore described which may be varied in bothconstruction and detail.

Claims (6)

1. 2

1. A cookie manufacturing process, comprising thesteps : delivering selected ingredients from associatedstorage hoppers to a weighing vessel, weighing outa preset desired weight of each ingredientmaterial and discharging said material to a mixingvessel; mixing the ingredient materials in the mixingvessel to form a dough; feeding the dough from the mixing vessel to acookie forming station, the dough being fed to adough hopper at the cookie forming station; extruding the dough from the dough hopper througha number of tubular outlets onto a conveyor belt,cutting the dough with a wire cutter into cookieshapes corresponding to the tubular outlets at adischarge end of each outlet; leading the cookie shapes on the conveyor througha continuous oven, regulating the conditions oftemperature and humidity within the oven and speedof travel through the oven to cook the cookieshapes to form cookies; delivering the cookies on a conveyor belt from anoutlet of the oven to a levelling station adjacentthe oven outlet, the levelling station having aleveller spaced a preset distance above a topsurface of the conveyor belt to engage and flattena top surface of the cookies as the conveyor belt 13 passes beneath the leveller to produce cookies ofa substantially uniform thickness; cooling the cookies in air to set the cookies; delivering the set cookies to a packing station,and packaging a preset desirable number of cookiesin packs . A process as claimed in claim 1 wherein thecookies are cooled by transporting the cookies onan elongate cookie transfer conveyor between thelevelling station and the packing station, theconveyor having at least two sections stacked oneabove the other, the conveyor sections havingconveyor belts with upper cookie carrying surfaceswhich travel in opposite directions, transferringcookies between a first section and a secondsection of the conveyor by engaging each cookiewith a rotating shaft mounted across an outlet endof the first section and having a greater surfacespeed than the first section conveyor belt forprojecting the cookies outwardly of the outlet endof the first section to land with the same side upon the conveyor belt of the second section of theconveyor underneath the first section. A process as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2including the steps of feeding the dough from themixing vessel to the dough hopper on a dough feedconveyor extending between the mixing vessel andthe dough hopper, sensing the level of dough inthe dough hopper and regulating the speed of thedough feed conveyor in response to the senseddough level in the dough hopper. 14 A process as claimed in any preceding claimincluding the step of arranging the cookies in adesired number of columns on the cookie transferconveyor up stream of the packing station forfeeding to the packing station by engaging thecookies with a number of rows of spaced-apartguide plates mounted above the conveyor andinclined relative to a longitudinal access of theconveyor. A process as claimed in any preceding claimwherein that the packing station of the processincludes the steps of feeding the cookies in anumber of columns on a forcing conveyor to acookie collector, gathering sets of cookies eachcomprising a desired number of cookies associatedwith a cookie pack in a number of shoots in thecollector, discharging the cookie sets onto awrapper in feed conveyor and delivering the cookiesets on the wrapper in feed conveyor to a wrappingmachine, and wrapping each cookie set in thewrapping machine to form a pack of cookies. A process as claimed in any preceding claimwherein the ingredient materials include goldensyrup and glucose syrup and the process includesthe steps of : delivering a quantity of golden syrup and glucosesyrup in a preset desirable ratio to a syrup tank, blending the syrups together in the syrup tank for a preset time period to form a homogenous syrup blend, 15 discharging blended syrup from the syrup tank toa syrup weigher and weighing out a predesiredamount of blended syrup in the syrup weigher, and pumping the blended syrup from the weigher to5 the mixing vessel.

2. 7 . A process as claimed in claim 6 wherein the golden syrup and glucose syrup are blended in the ratio3:1 by weight.

3. 8. A process as claimed in claim 6 or claim 7 10 including the step of regulating the temperature of the blended syrup for maintaining the syruptemperature within a preset desirable temperaturerange.

4. 9. A process as claimed in any preceding claim 15 including the steps of sensing the colour of the cookies at the outlet of the oven and regulatingthe humidity and temperature within the oven andthe speed to travel of cookie shapes through theoven in response to the sensed cookie colour to 20 achieve a preset desired cookie condition at the outlet of the oven.

5. 10. A process as claimed in any preceding claimwherein blocks of palm oil are used as aningredient material and the process includes the 25 step of gently heating the block of palm oil for softening the blocks of palm oil prior to addingthe blocks of palm oil to the mixing vessel.

6. 11. A cookie manufacturing process substantially ashereinbefore described with reference to the 30 accompanying drawings. 16 12. 13. 5 Cookies whenever produced according to the processas claimed in any preceding claim. Apparatus for carrying out a cookie manufacturingprocess as claimed in any of claims 1 to 11substantially as hereinbefore described withreference to the accompanying drawings. CRUICKSHANK & CO