DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY — GEA has introduced its GEA bake extruder designed for high-volume and high-speed applications. The extruder may be deployed as a stand-alone unit or integrated with downstream oven systems.

The extruder supports various production cycles, including wirecut, co-extruded, filled, continuous extended and like-deposited products — all formats used in the production of cookies, bars and biscuits with various textures, fillings and inclusions. The wirecut system nominally can operate at speeds of up to 350 strokes per minute across a maximum working width of 1,700 millimeters. The machine can make 130 cuts per minute when producing encapsulated cookies and up to 250 cuts per minute for continuous extruded products, according to Düsseldorf-based GEA.

“GEA identified current needs in a customer survey and aligned its engineering accordingly,” said Matteo Pasquali, application manager soft dough at GEA. “From customer interviews, we learned that the industry demands higher performance, greater flexibility, easier cleaning and enhanced product variety. The Bake Extruder is our response to those requests.”