Warburtons Super Bakery, Wakefield, United Kingdom

Warburtons, one of the largest bakers in the UK, has constructed a new industrial 'super bakery' on a 1.2ha site in Tuscany Park, Wakefield. The £60m development (Warburtons' 12th bakery) was completed and operational on schedule in June 2005.

The company already had an existing site in Wakefield, which employed over 250 staff (Westgate End). The new site at Wakefield Europort has created a further 200 new jobs in the area. The development was managed from the company's Bolton head office for the duration of the construction but all administration facilities are now fully in place at the new site.

The overall size of the development is 21,565m², which includes 200m² of office space. The contracts were awarded in early 2004 following an extensive consultation and planning process. Planning permissions were granted at the end of July 2004. The new facility was part of Warburtons' expansion plan to improve supply and logistics to key market areas across the UK.

The company acquired the old Rathbones bakery in Rogerstone, South Wales, in 2005 to improve supply to the southwest. This was officially opened in October 2007. Bread production has now been completely transferred from the Westgate End site in Wakefield to the new facility and the facilities at the new site now allow for a quadrupling of production.

The super bakery has a capacity for 2 million loaves and 500,000 packets of rolls a week. There is also a visitor centre telling the story of bread making for school visits, along with a picnic area. The company is planning to spend a further £250m expanding its bakery operations across the country over the next five years, with a particular emphasis on the south and south west.

CONTRACTORS AND CONSTRUCTION

Work started in August 2004. The architect for the new building was Higgs and Young Architects of London. The quantity surveyor was Kay Bangham and Partners and the general construction contractor was William Hargreaves Ltd. Marshall Construction was also involved in the construction of the bakery buildings. Warburtons were able to oversee the fit-out of the bakery areas themselves.

Baker Perkins was one of the main equipment providers for the new bakery. Another bakery equipment provider was Lock. RTS Flexible Systems provided a magnetic robot gantry system to remove hot bread tins from the conveyor leading from the ovens.

The plant has one high-volume bread plant, capable of producing 8,400 800g loaves an hour, and a roll plant, capable of producing 60,000 baps an hour. Space was allowed at the new bakery for a phase two expansion and a new bread plant will be in operation there by 2008. Expansion at the bakery's Enfield plant is also ongoing with Baker Perkins completing the delivery of a mixing and forming system for the second production line.

PLANT OUTFITTING

Warburtons ordered mixing and forming equipment from Baker Perkins for the new bakery. A key part of the investment was the choice of Baker Perkins 'Multitex4' moulders to maximise operational efficiency and bread quality.

Warburtons specified two parallel mixing and forming systems for the new high-output bread plant, consisting of Baker Perkins 'Tweedy' mixers, 'Accurist' dividers, conical moulders, first provers and 'Multitex4' moulders, and their integrated control system. Another Tweedy mixing system was supplied for the new roll line.

The 'Multitex4' improves bread quality through gentle handling, and features four pairs of close-coupled sheeting rollers. The use of centralising rollers and close-coupled sheeting rollers with no scrapers or transfer plates means that jams are eliminated and downtime is minimised. The system is also designed to process any double doughs if required.

DOUGH MOULDERS

The four-roll arrangement of the 'Multitex4' improves quality through close control of size, shape and length-to-width ratio of the dough sheet before coiling. Coiling is tighter, and there is much less stress on the dough because thickness reduction is more progressive. This results in better resistance to tearing, a whiter loaf up to 18% softer, and a strong, straight-sided shape that fills the tin well.

DOUGH WEIGHERS

Lock Inspection Systems' doughweighers have been incorporated in the new plant following successful use at other Warburtons sites in the UK. The CK1500 doughweighers have increased productivity and reduced costs by eliminating product inconsistencies and minimising dough wastage.

Installed after the dough rounder and before the first prover, Lock's CK1500 gives feedback servo control to the divider and provides reliable protection against producing under or overweight product. It can weigh pieces of up to 900g and achieve throughput rates of 9,000 pieces per hour. Accuracies for the most common applications stand at ±1g.

The unit has a touch screen display panel, which is easy to operate and interpret, and displays average, actual, over- and underweight data, also assisting with any problem diagnosis and machine set-up. The machine's 'auto-tare' facility ensures that any build-up of dough on the belt does not affect weight data. The 'lift and drop flap' ensures that all dough pieces that are under- or over-weight or are at invalid pitch are reliably removed from the production line. Rejected dough is stored in a stainless steel bin which is fitted with a Guardmaster safety switch and a 'bin full' warning feature for efficient recycling, thereby reducing costs further.

RTS FLEXIBLE SYSTEMS ROBOT GANTRY SYSTEM

Loading bread tins on and off the conveyors is a difficult enough job even when done singularly, as the tins are often still hot from the ovens. However, as demand and throughput increased, the tins were strapped together and so got heavier and heavier. In the new Wakefield bakery the system installed had already been developed in 11 other bakeries. The RTS gantry robot system used at Pilkington Glass was adapted to the purpose of lifting groups of bread tins using magnets.

Warburtons has 11 bakeries and now the new Wakefield super bakery is using the RTS magnetic gantry robot solution, bringing the number of tin and lid storage systems in use by Warburtons to 27 at six of their sites. RTS Flexible Systems won a Suppliers Award from Warburtons at a recent suppliers conference as recognition of RTS' 'commitment and outstanding contribution' during a 12-year working partnership.

PHASE TWO EXPANSION IN 2008

In June 2007 Warburtons started their phase two expansion (space had already been allowed in the original building) by starting an expansion with Baker Perkins equipment. The new phase will lead to an additional high-output bread plant. Warburtons ordered two parallel Baker Perkins mixing and forming systems for the initial bread plant.

They have now repeated the order for the expansion. Equipment will include Baker Perkins Tweedy mixers, Accurist2 dividers, conical moulders, first provers and Multitex4 moulders, plus an integrated control system. The new bread plant will be in operation by early 2008.