Nevin TOPRAK

Industrial bakeries did not let anyone lack of bread during the Covid-19 pandemic, which imprisoned almost the entire world at home. Besides health institutions like hospitals and pharmacies, industrial bakeries also provided full product and service to people. Due to health concerns, products supplied by industrial bakeries were highly demanded; inquiries for packed bakery products reached its peak level during this Covid-19 period which emerged once again the importance of industrial bakeries all around the world.

A crisis is an unexpected, negative situation that changes the current normal conditions, affects the future of the society, and people are often late to take necessary steps. Pandemics, wars, famine, natural disasters, and economic crises can be given as examples of this definition in the first place. Both public institutions and private businesses and even community members should consider possible crises while making medium and long-term plans. All decisions taken before, during and after the crisis are important and vital for all segments. Industrial bakery and industrial bakery technologies, which have been developing rapidly, gain more importance during such crisis. Sarmaşık Group develops and realizes high quality projects -in line with the needs of its customers- that produce bread non-stop in both ordinary and extraordinary conditions.

Especially for the last 20-30 years, the industrial bakery sector has been developing rapidly in Turkey, which enables to produce untouched healthy bread production in a hygienic environment to Turkish people through industrial baking technologies. Now, it is possible to produce untouched bread from flour silo up to the packaging stage. Today, with the Covid-19 virus, which has brought the whole world to its knees, we all witnessed such a crisis for the first time. Countries closed their borders, planes did not take-off; schools, places of worship were closed, shopping malls, theatrical scenes, entertainment venues were all closed and curfews were imposed. In this process, hospitals, pharmacies and supermarkets, as well as bakeries, worked 24/7 and reminded us once again how important the bakery sector is for the society by providing fresh bread to the public.

HEALTH AND HYGIENE GAIN MORE IMPORTACE Of course, during this Covid-19 pandemic, once again the importance of industrial baking raised a lot. Now, production is not enough anymore; you have to produce healthy and nutritious bakery products economically. The products need to be produced and packaged in hygienic environments. The production must be efficient and at low costs with minimum wastage against economic crisis that occurs with any kind of crisis. In other words, an increase in productivity and wastage reduction during production process is a must now.

In addition to this, in order to prevent waste of bread, both consumers and bakers prefer packaged products in smaller weights, rather than large weights. From now on, industrial bakers and consumers have to avoid waste of bread by producing and consuming the right amounts. Adopting this awareness, Sarmaşık develops industrial bakery technologies, always observes the principle of economy and efficiency, and develops the latest bakery technologies for the production of healthy and nutritious products for society.

24,000 PC/HR BUNS AND ROLLS ON ONE LINE Both in normal conditions and in times of crisis, Sarmaşık Group shapes its works with all its units by considering these needs. While reducing the cost of flour storage with its complete stainless-steel indoor silos manufactured in accordance with the latest quality and technology in the raw material storage stage, it also contributes to the increase of product quality with vibrator or air and pneumatic discharge systems. For dough mixing systems, single or double arm spiral industrial dough mixers are ideal mixers for all types of dough such as hard, soft and specially blended. With these mixers, dough mixing time is shortened compared to other dough mixers and both product quality and productivity increase. In addition, the configuration of dough processing systems used in industrial bakeries is determined by considering the needs of customers. Today, producing hearth/tin bread of 6000 pc/h of all types or 24000 pc/h buns and rolls per line is possible. As Sarmaşık Makina, we produce heavy-duty and durable dough make-up systems used for both fully automatic or semi-automatic bread production lines suitable for 24/7 operation. In any kind of disaster or crisis, bread production should not halt and production must continue without any issues. For this reason, Sarmaşık designs all its products to be both high quality and long-lasting.

We can classify industrial bakeries as fully/semi-automatic industrial systems with pan, fully/semi-automatic industrial hearth bread tunnel oven systems, semi-automatic industrial hearth bread deck/rack oven systems, supermarket/hypermarket solutions, semi-automatic central bakery solutions, mobile bakery (container/trailer) and frozen bakery concepts. With all these bakery technologies, it is now possible to produce healthy and nutritious bakery products efficiently and economically.

COVID-19 EXPEDITING INVESTMENT DECISIONS With the Covid-19 epidemic crisis, which we encountered in this period when the industrial bakery was rapidly developing, our domestic and foreign customers took precautions against the crisis, continuing their production by increasing their production capacity. Covid-19 brought along the global economic crisis. Although bakers increased their financing control, they did not cancel their ongoing investments. In fact, when we are trying to normalize our life these days, bakeries have started realizing the investments and the projects that have been waiting on the agenda while taking necessary lessons from this period.

When the pandemic broke out and during the most intense period, our customers demanded more spare parts and service and continued their production. Having the awareness of the significance of the situation, we have operated our factory in a controlled manner and ensured continuous supply of spare parts and services to our customers. Thanks to the service department of our company, which works 24/7 for the supply of spare parts kits or special parts based on orders, our customers are enjoying the opportunity of continuous and efficient production. Sarmaşık Group, which conducts fast delivery from stock and also produces the items that are available in stock on-demand, has never let its customers down supplying high quality and original spare parts.

Standing with its customers also after the sale and project designing, Sarmaşık Group answers technical questions with its technical support engineers and works to fix technical problems. It sends the appropriate technician team to the customer when necessary or requested and it ensures substantial solutions for the problem.

Knowing that after-sales support is as valuable as the service and products provided, Sarmaşık Group offers after-sales solutions such as inspection, repair, refurbishment, system integration, installation and start-up. During this crisis period, Sarmaşık continues to increase all its spare parts and service support.

Under the vision “to be the world leader in the provision of innovative technologies in the bakery industry focused on positive global environment and health contribution”, Sarmaşık Group keeps developing and presenting new baking technologies to the world baking industry. With fifty decades of experience in this sector, we well know how important industrial bakeries are in times of crises. With this awareness, we continue to contribute to the development of the industry.