There are many ways to enjoy muesli. As a compact bar, it even slides into any pocket. Minderleinsmühle is well versed in mastering the process. The organic trailblazer turns grains into high-quality products, including muesli bars. It packs them into boxes using a packaging solution from Schubert – one which Minderleinsmühle hadn’t anticipated.

The setting couldn’t be more idyllic. On the border between Upper and Middle Franconia, Germany, a grouping of historic white buildings sits nestled along the banks of the Schwabach River. In Kalchreuth near Neunkirchen am Brand, Minderleinsmühle has been producing organic-quality cereal products since the late 1980s. The heritage-listed watermill, which has been family-owned since 1776, does more than just grind all types of grains into fine flours. Over the course of its long history, muesli, pasta, fruit, nuts and seeds have enriched the product range, which the company produces in the most sustainable way possible.

Alongside the careful use of resources, raw materials from organic farming have been part of the forward-thinking strategy that has made Minderleinsmühle a leader in ecological, locally produced goods. It comes as no surprise that its excellent reputation has carried these healthy products far beyond the local area. Under the ‘Minderleinsmühle’ and ‘Rosengarten’ brands, cereals, baked goods, sweets, chocolates and snacks are available in the mill’s own shops, as well as in renowned health food shops in Germany and across Europe.

A new machine joins the team

Given the company’s tradition-conscious approach, it goes without saying that Minderleinsmühle values craftsmanship: the production staff, for example, pack the popular muesli bars under the ‘Mühlengenuss’ brand. The task involved manually assembling folding boxes, filling them with bars and sealing them – a process through which many bars found their way into the boxes every day – until Florian Schmiedecke and Tim Scharringhausen decided to optimise the process. This wasn’t a coincidence: the Plant Manager and the Head of the Cereals Division at Minderleinsmühle were inspired by a visit to the 2023 interpack trade fair. When they stopped by the Gerhard Schubert stand, they were quite amazed to see an agile robot quickly picking up random products from a conveyor belt and placing them precisely elsewhere. The two visitors from Minderleinsmühle were unaware that, at that very moment, they were being introduced to Schubert’s AI-powered TOG pick & place robot – a technology that would soon be packaging bars in Kalchreuth.

Packing in the smallest of spaces

The space where the future has been unfolding at Minderleinsmühle for some time now measures a mere 1.5 by 1.4 metres. This is where the TOG was installed by Schubert technicians in collaboration with the team from the long-established Franconian company. Florian Schmiedecke, Tim Scharringhausen and Hannes Häusler, Head of the Cobot Division at Schubert, were clearly delighted in autumn 2025 as they watched the agile robot pick up the compact Mühlengenuss bars one by one from a feed belt and place them precisely into manually assembled folding cartons. An infeed chain guides them past the robot. “For us, the TOG cobot represents an enormous leap forward, both technologically and in terms of teamwork,” says Scharringhausen, describing the single-arm robot that has been successfully carrying out its automated tasks since spring 2024. The team members who erect the boxes are also enthusiastic as they watch the TOG at work. Not a trace of nostalgia – after all, the robot from Crailsheim is now taking a fair amount of the workload off their hands.

So, what exactly took place since interpack 2023? “We had been wanting to introduce partial automation for quite some time,” says Schmiedecke, describing the initial thinking. “Our goal was to box quickly and without time-consuming format changes, as trained staff were in short supply and the monotonous task was unnecessarily tying up available capacity.” The visit to interpack turned out to be a stroke of luck that set the course for big changes to come. A large installation was out of the question for Minderleinsmühle: the available space was only sufficient for an extremely compact solution. “We were excited when we saw just such a solution at Schubert’s stand. Until then, we had only been familiar with the TLM machines. So we were even more curious, and we immediately struck up a conversation with Schubert’s cobot specialists,” recalls Scharringhausen.

The cobot team did a fantastic job, both in Düsseldorf and later in Upper Franconia: the technology the small group had gathered around in 2025 quickly proved to be the right solution for Minderleinsmühle. Not only because it places up to 70 bars per minute into a total of nine types of folding cartons with different packing configurations. It also performs the task with a high degree of autonomy, as it ‘sees’ what is in front of it thanks to artificial intelligence and makes decisions independently. “Given the different printed designs on the flowpacks, this was exactly what we needed,” points out Schmiedecke.

Greater performance with AI

No two bars are alike: the variety of flavours mean differently printed flowpacks, all of which need to be identified and placed correctly. The task is tailor-made for a system that recognises the products thanks to special ‘training’ and grips them securely. Using a camera and a neural network – a type of robot brain – the TOG can identify, pick up and place objects it has never seen before. Unlike traditional algorithms, which define a rule for every single product, with AI, a category such as bar, pouch or bottle is essentially sufficient. The system then operates autonomously – around the clock if required – but above all without the need for complex programming. This advanced technology was just one of the reasons why the TOG was up and running in less than twenty-four hours.

“Another unique feature makes the robot exceptionally precise,” says Hannes Häusler, pointing to the infeed conveyor that feeds the folding cartons to the robot. “It controls them fully automatically so that it can place the bars with millimetre precision.” The TOG cobot recognises the folding cartons arriving on the infeed conveyor, pulls each one to the end of the work area and fills it. This ensures that all bars are perfectly positioned inside the carton. As a result, it doesn’t need to adjust the infeed conveyor to the case count – the number of bars per carton. And because the robot recognises the boxes independently thanks to a camera, the machine doesn’t require belt dividers or indexing. This allows the customer to switch between different box sizes quickly and cost-effectively.

It’s all about efficiency and absolute precision – a combination that has been a source of great satisfaction at the mill. “Thanks to Schubert, we now have very streamlined, consistent, hassle-free production,” explains Schmiedecke, as he watches the TOG in action. Hannes Häusler, standing beside him, agrees: “The project was a challenge for us because we had to implement complex automation within a compact space. We succeeded thanks in no small part to the tray tracking – i.e. the recognition of a moving tray – which the TOG handles flawlessly using a single neural network – a key to our success.”

The compact unit, which has sparked so much enthusiasm in Kalchreuth, was also up and running very quickly: only two days passed between delivery and the production start. Because the TOG is housed in a flexible automation cell and the customer had prepared the installation perfectly, the robot was able to set off for Bavaria by lorry and begin picking the first bars shortly afterwards. On the day of commissioning, the team was even able to continue production into the late shift. For Tim Scharringhausen and his colleagues, this was a joint achievement that left a lasting impression: “Our staff operated the TOG flawlessly from day one. With Schubert, we had an exceptionally strong introduction all around – something I’ve never experienced with any other system.”