A leading bakery group has invested in a Gasparin slicer from EPP to supply pre-sliced teacakes to a renowned high street retail cafe across the UK. The slicing process, carried out on the bakery line, enables café staff to serve toasted fruit teacakes more quickly and efficiently.

The bakery group has supplied the high street retailer with products for more than a decade, including the much-loved toasted teacake, a staple of the Café menu. Additionally, it provides other leading high street retailers with products such as hot cross buns, bread rolls, brioche buns and iced buns. The retail cafe outlet found that hand-slicing teacakes in-store was time-consuming and slowed down service during busy periods. To streamline operations, the bakery approached EPP for a solution.

“The high street retailer felt that removing an additional process from the café environment would be beneficial,” says Michael Lomas, Technical Sales Manager at EPP. “It would also eliminate the risk of injury, as large knives would no longer be needed or stored. The challenge with slicing teacakes at scale is that the fruit residue sticks to the blade, which then requires frequent cleaning to maintain performance.”

EPP collaborated with the bakery to conduct trials at Gasparin’s manufacturing site in Marano Vicentino, Italy, to determine how long an automated slicer could run before cleaning was necessary. EPP worked to include special features to enable the slicer to run longer between cleaning. After extensive follow-up testing with a trial slicer at the UK bakery site, they invested in a Gasparin Model 110 horizontal slicer, which can slice up to 3,600 teacakes per hour. As an added bonus, the retailer found the cut to be cleaner and more consistent than previously hand-sliced teacakes.

“It was a pleasure to work with the renowned bakery and well known high street retailer to solve this efficiency challenge,” adds Michael. “Automating processes to improve consistency, safety and return on investment is central to what we do. It’s also rewarding to support bakeries in delivering continued success for an iconic product like the teacake.”