As the sweet aroma of caramel wafts through the Tunnock’s factory just outside Glasgow, the family-owned biscuit maker is grappling with the challenge of balancing tradition and efficiency. While much of the operation is automated, the delicate process of spreading the caramel onto the wafers remains a labour-intensive task, requiring the skilled touch of experienced workers.
“We’re making roughly 20 tonnes of caramel a day,” says Stuart Louden, the firm’s engineering and transport manager and fifth-generation Tunnock family member. “Operators do a lot of caramel testing, just on sight and on feel. So basically, they walk up to the caramel and just give it a squeeze.”
Despite the manual labour involved, Tunnock’s has always embraced the latest technology to keep up with the competition. Compared to industry giants like McVitie’s or Fox’s, Tunnock’s is a small player, and as Mr Louden puts it, “We are a small fish in a big pond, and to try and keep up with some of these bigger companies that we are competing against, you’ve got to have the good machines there to get the output.”
The company has machines to spread the caramel, which work at night, but the human workforce remains more flexible and takes up less space. Together, the machines and humans turn out around seven million wafer bars and 4.5 million teacakes every week.
Striking the right balance between maintaining traditions and increasing output is a constant challenge for the firm. For example, while the caramel production is closely supervised by human workers, the wrapping of the wafer bars is folded around the product rather than sealed at the end, a process that could be streamlined but would sacrifice the nostalgic appeal.
“It’s a nice thing. If you give people a caramel wafer, and somebody’s not had one for 20 or 30 years, they go, ‘I remember having one of these when I was a kid,'” says Mr Louden.
The makers of a new robot arm for the cake industry, Canada’s Unifiller, are hoping to bridge the gap between speed and tradition. Their HIRO robot arm is designed to decorate cakes and can handle a variety of toppings, including caramel.
“If you can squeeze it through a pastry bag… then it will go through our equipment and the decorating tips,” says Derek Lanoville, the research and development manager at Coperion, Unifiller’s parent company.
However, introducing new technology to the food industry comes with its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to hygiene and the variability of food products. As Mr Lanoville explains, “The cake may not be perfectly centred on the cardboard it’s sitting on. It may be a little bit oval, may be a little bit higher or slightly domed. So, our solution has to accommodate that.”
For Anomarel Ogen, head baker at The Bread Factory, where products for the café chain Gail’s are baked, human hands are still essential to the baking process. “Look at his hands, and look how gentle he actually is with the movement, how little pressure he is actually putting in. That requires years of skill. This is not fully replaceable by machines just yet,” he says.
As the food industry continues to grapple with the balance between tradition and technology, the key, according to Craig Le Clair, principal analyst at Forrester, is “developing a hybrid model that integrates automation without losing the ‘soul’ of a handcrafted product.”
For Tunnock’s, the path forward will likely involve a careful and measured approach, upgrading their production line as the financial environment allows. As Mr Louden says, “When it comes to investing another two-and-a-half million pounds in equipment, we just need to wait, because the last couple of years just have not been the right time, and we don’t want to put ourselves financially in a position that it could hurt us.”