The Middleby Bakery Group, with its primary US location in Plano, Texas is intent on more growth, including further acquisitions. The aim is for clients throughout the baking sector to be offered complete turnkey solutions for all their production needs, with delivery times for completed plants being reduced considerably.
The portfolio of the Middleby Bakery Group is extensive and steadily growing and includes dough make-up plants, proofers, handling systems and a wide variety of ovens including tunnel, conveyorized, and serpentine. Mark Salman, President of the Processing Group that includes the Middleby Bakery Group, oversaw the acquisition of several companies in 2017 in order to strengthen the bakery division, namely, the Burford Corporation based in Maysville, Oklahoma and the Sveba Dahlen Group located in Fristad, which includes Glimek and Varimixer. Further acquisitions followed with the most recent being the purchase of Scanico, a specialist in coolers and freezers and spiral proofers for the industrial baking industry. The Group’s objective is to ensure that all customers receive the lowest overall costs of ownership possible. Innovations in equipment construction are designed not only to reduce operating costs but also to minimize the customers’ capital expenditures/investment costs with the aim of also increasing output.
The Group offers a variety of solutions for both industrial and artisan bakers, although the focus is more on industrial bakers and for this reason the engineers from Baker Thermal Solutions developed the 960 Hurricane tunnel oven, which reduces overall costs by decreasing energy consumption and increasing output. Another addition, aimed at industrial bakers, is the Auto-Bake Serpentine, which saves space and cost due to its compactness and lower energy consumption.
In December 2017, Middleby announced the acquisition of Scanico A/S, a leading manufacturer of industrial cooling and freezing equipment for the food processing industry. Scanico a Danish based company, with more than 25 years’ experience, designs and constructs spiral systems for different applications, including IQF freezing, chilling, steaming and proofing for the world’s leading food-processing companies.
Growth markets
The company sees growth opportunities primarily in Asian markets, closely followed by Europe and South America. Salman adds, “We are also concentrating our efforts on emerging markets and on highly competitive markets where low overall costs are important.” However, the Middle East and Russia are also strategic markets for the Middleby Bakery Group. The Group also recently opened a new Innovation Center in India in late 2017.
The company is exhibiting at a wide variety of trade fairs, with IBA in Munich being the most important exhibition for the Group during 2018. The Group will be demonstrating several updated designs and innovations across the entire equipment portfolio including a new oven under the Auto-Bake brand.
The Group is also working intensively on a solution to considerably reduce equipment delivery times. Mark Salman says, “Naturally, every customer would like to have their lines installed immediately and as a result of our increased production capacities, we should be in a position in the very near future to reduce delivery times considerably.
Middleby Acquires Hinds‐Bock Corporation
The Middleby Corporation today announced the acquisition of Hinds-Bock Corporation. The company is a leading manufacturer of solutions for filling and depositing bakery and food product, an integral part of the industrial baking and food processing line. The company is based in Bothell, Washington and has approximately US-Dollar 15 million in annual revenues. “For decades, Hinds-Bock has been a leader in filling and depositing technologies serving industrial baking, food processing and other specialty areas. This acquisition allows Middleby to offer a customized and complete integrated solution for their high volume baking and processing needs,” said Selim Bassoul, Chairman and CEO of The Middleby Corporation. “Hinds-Bock technology will highly complement the existing bakery and processing systems of our current brands. We can now offer our customers more with one supplier.”
Hinds-Bock is a top manufacturer of standard and custom depositing machines and fully automated lines for the baking industry for depositing batters such as muffin, cupcake and cake, depositing fruit pie fillings, mini cake lines, icing equipment and dry toppings such as streusel and nuts. Food factories also rely on Hinds-Bock for liquid bottle filling, high speed meal filling systems, value added protein applications and expertise in the integration of standard and custom filling machines for vertical and horizontal form fill seal applications.
