Baking quality is essential for suppliers when it comes to maintaining business performance and supply chain efficiency.
Customers need to be assured that goods are delicious and nutritious every time they buy them. They do not want the product to be inconsistent in any way, be that taste, size, or nutritional qualities.
The question is, how can this consistency be achieved? One answer is; C-Cell.
What is C-Cell?
C-Cell is a quality analyser that takes a detailed look at any sample of baked product.
Whether it’s a slice of bread, pastry, or cake, it uses a versatile lighting and a high-fidelity colour imager, to assess the specifics of the bake.
This is a sophisticated piece of machinery that measures more than 50 different elements of bakery products. That could be internal structure or slice shape measurements, or complex bread scoring and internal feature analysis.
From there, the information is categorised into:
- Size and Shape
- Cell numbers
- Cell orientation and colour
Unlike traditional bread scoring, this isn’t reliant on subjective, sensory impressions, but on multiple measurements taken from precise image analysis.
- Colour analysis - this is based on the Lab* colour space, an international standard that uses numerical scales for objective colour values.
- Quality - It analyses markers of quality such as cell elongation patterns, tunnelling in cakes, uncooked dough, surface cracking, and more.
- Dimensions - the dimensions of the loaded sample, such as height, width, and diameter, as well as the numbers and dimensions of inclusions like chocolate chips and berries are accurately measured.
- Batch analysis and consistent scoring using set parameters.
C-Cell provides a scientific, unbiased method of testing quality and measuring the various impacts of changes to the production process.
What is C-Cell used for?
C-Cell’s overarching function is to improve quality control in the baking industry.
It ensures that when a customer selects a product from the shelves of their grocery store, they can be confident that, for example, the loaf, packet of biscuits or tortillas they have bought will be the same baking quality as any they bought previously.
The way it does this is by analysing features of the bake. These include:
Cells
Cells manifest themselves when baking powder reacts in the dough of bakes like cakes and bread, aerating the mixture and giving it that all-important lightness when cooked. These air pockets are key to the bake in many subtle, but vital, ways and measuring them can reveal essential details concerning the performance of the dough.
When there are insufficient cells, the result will be a flat, sunken bake lacking in texture or taste. It can work the other way too. If there are too many then there will be thin cell walls, and this will reduce the overall volume of bread or cake creating an insubstantial and therefore unsatisfactory product.
Inclusions
Many cakes and bakes derive their flavour and uniqueness from ingredients like dried fruits, chocolate chips or seeds. These “inclusions” need to be evenly spaced and a consistent number (anyone who has made their own cakes only to find that all the fruits have sunk to the bottom will understand the frustration of this, so imagine if this happened on a wider scale). C-Cell can count the inclusions in a sample and produce a graphically overlaid image that highlights their locations, shapes, and sizes.
Dimensions
C-Cell can quickly ascertain the specific measurements of a sample, from length and width to concavity, cell diameters, and cell wall thicknesses.
These measurements can be batch measured to calculate averages and feed valuable data back into quality assurance, helping to establish tolerances and any lapses in overall quality.
Inconsistency in baked goods is definitely undesirable. No one wants a sliced loaf where the slices are of different thicknesses, or lack of uniformity in packages that contain multiples of the same product.
External features
C-Cell measures even the most minute details of samples, like the number and concentration of seeds on burger buns and the cracks that naturally occur in biscuit dough as it bakes and hardens.
These external features are often the first thing that a customer will notice when browsing baked goods, and though seemingly superficial, could be the first and only deciding factor in what they choose to buy.
Therefore, they cannot be ruled out as an important marker of quality, and should be measured accordingly.
Crust analysis
Analysis of crumb is important for quantifying bread quality. Though the internal crumb constitutes much of the texture and taste, crust is important for appearance and the ‘finish’ of a loaf.
C-Cell measures the thickness and lab* colour of bread crust to ensure the right level of quality is communicated through the external appearance of loaves.
Season harvest variations
When suppliers move from a previous year’s crop to the current season, this can cause some variation in products like flour. These changes can cause minor changes in the outcome of baked goods, such as colour and cells.
Keeping track of the in-depth effects of these variations is essential for maintaining baking quality.
How can C-Cell be used in the baking industry?
C-Cell is perfectly suited for maintaining baking quality, and it does this by using a combination of high-resolution images, powerful analysis, and accurate data consolidation for quantifying and reporting.
C-Cell’s operation can be thus distilled into a simple, three-step process: image, analyse, quantify.
Following this easy-to-follow path, bakeries can concentrate their quality control into a short and repeatable process with accurate results, needing only one point of analysis to unlock a wide range of data.
Why is it important to test quality in baking?
- You can ensure that the quality of goods going to market is consistent
- It helps ongoing research and development into products. It can help in fine-tuning existing baking products or in launching new ones
- Various ingredient qualities can be tested using C-Cell and their effects on bakes can be objectively measured to ascertain best practice moving forward. The result is errors are reduced and the high-quality is translated into repeatable processes
To find out more about C-Cell and how it is important for baking quality visit our website here.