As Cetravac celebrates 25 years of working in the baking industry, Baking+Biscuit International analyzes with its founder, Adolf Cermak, the opportunities of the unique, patented vacuum technology perfected by cetravac and bakeXperts. We delved into what truly revolutionary, disruptive ideas mean, from the perspective of an engineering specialist. Together, we also looked into what shapes the future of innovation in bakery and how a technology developer stays innovative over time.
Current developments
Catalina Mihu: Vacuum cooling specialist cetravac, together with its sister company bakeXperts, are synonymous with the unique UDO oven. What are the latest technology updates it currently incorporates, and where could it go next?
Adolf Cermak: We introduced three new models at südback 2024, with different capacities: the Shop-UDO ovens, working with 6 trays, with 2 x 6 trays and 15 trays, all coming with rack loading systems to minimize loading times and to have the products on all trays baked at the same time. It is a big advantage compared to having the products in the first tray nearly/already baked, while on the 15th tray, they are still frozen. Racks that can be directly pushed into the oven are available for bigger setups, and can already be seen at Aldi and in other supermarkets, for example. However, artisan bakers can also have this option now, with the new models. The first bakeries to use them are already carrying out tests.
A high-speed UDO snack oven will be shown at iba in Dusseldorf. It can bake and cool down a frozen pizza to a ready-to-eat temperature, in only two minutes, with no microwaves involved – meaning that the structure of the dough remains intact. This is the main difference compared to other high-speed ovens, which work with microwaves.
Mihu: What are the R&D priorities of each company?
Cermak: bakeXperts is introducing the three new oven models I mentioned. The next step will be to advance from PLC technology to a print control system. PLC was useful as we were making changes to the program, but it is an expensive solution.
At Cetravac, we are working on budget-friendly versions of the vacuum conditioning systems. A smaller, entry-level vacuum cooling model with all the basic features can be accessible to hundreds of smaller, artisan bakers, who are not yet potential customers. A smaller bakery does not necessarily need 12 batches per hour, and, perhaps, they may not need automatic sliding doors. If you leave out some of these convenience functions, the process result will, nevertheless, be the same. Entry-level models can be designed to fit between 6 to 8 batches an hour, while delivering the same benefits in terms of quality, freshness, energy and labor savings. By comparison, the current equipment can fit 10-12 batches/hour.
Adolf Cermak, helped develop the vacuum baking and conditioning technology.
The DACH region
Mihu: Vacuum technology is gaining ground in the German-speaking countries. How was the UDO oven received in the DACH region, where it is already known, and what are some of its applications there?
Cermak: The specialist stores that use the new oven models are able to bake and cool frozen dough 40% faster. They use the UDO for croissants, Danish, or rolls. In addition, they can also double-bake products, so that the bread that remained unsold at the end of the day can regain its freshly baked properties the next day. This is possible thanks to the patented starch re-gelatinization process that allows products to be fully restored, minimizing food and raw material waste, as well as associated energy and time.
Mihu: What makes vacuum conditioning and baking particularly successful in this region?
Cermak: I don’t know of any other region where bakeries produce such a wide range of baked goods in their stores. Bakers here are used to selling their customers warm, fresh out-of-the-oven products (and not products just delivered for sale). The UDO also offers a great advantage, especially when working with inexperienced staff: the employees simply take the products out of the freezer and place them in the oven – that’s it! Steps such as defrosting or proofing are taken out of consideration. The same applies to vacuum cooling in production, as it helps with the production of parbaked goods, which the UDO then bakes quickly and to a very high quality. Combining vacuum cooling with baking is the key to success in the future.
Adolf Cermak, founder, cetravac, bakeXperts
Ideas drive the business forward
Mihu: What was the concept behind establishing cetravac?
Cermak: There was not one crystalized concept, but an idea I was discussing with a baker/scientist friend about two years before founding the company, namely how interesting cooling applications were in the 70s. Back then, vacuum cooling was used to cool down tin breads so they could be sliced better and faster. The technology had virtually disappeared from the market back then, because the vacuum pumps at the time were quite rudimentary and there were no suitable control systems (PLC) that could be used to control processes in such an accurate and versatile way. With this idea in mind, I developed a small test system for vacuum cooling, which delivered promising results. This is how cetravac started.
Arno Tiggelbeck, Head of Application Technology; Veronika Grebner, CEO; Gero Friedrich, Site Manager North, Head of Product Management
Mihu: So it all started from a fortuitous but useful conversation?
Cermak: Yes. As I was carrying out the first tests, I quickly became convinced that this would be a technology for the future; in the early 2000s, the industry was just starting to talk about new trends such as parbaked and frozen dough products. Vacuum cooling could be helpful in this, I thought. It was the right idea and the right time.
Mihu: And how has cetravac Cetravac developed vacuum technology since then?
Cermak: We were about 10-15 years ahead of the market, with our concept. For new ideas to grow, you must always find someone who wants to do the pioneering work. At the start of the 2000s, we found customers in various countries, from Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and America, to Japan and Russia, who wanted to be the first to try something new, like vacuum technology. But a breakthrough was still a long way off.
We further developed the technology for over a decade, before the first vacuum chambers were purchased in German and Austrian bakeries for their usefulness, and not because they wanted to be the first.
The next step was a new idea, based on vacuum cooling: the development of an oven with integrated vacuum cooling so that the chamber could be used for baking and cooling. We designed an oven with a vacuum-proof baking chamber, a vacuum pump and a steam generator. During our first tests, the core temperature of the bread rose from 20 to 80 °C in just one minute. After analyzing this phenomenon, it was clear to us that we had discovered something very special. We confirmed that this unique process developed in this way consistently. Thanks to the re-gelatinization of starch, in a now patented process, there is no loss of product weight, and baking time and energy consumption are significantly reduced. This is one of UDO’s core competencies.
With the competition coming from supermarkets that were offering freshly baked bread, bakeries needed to set a clear differentiation in product quality – to justify having higher prices than discounters; and, with vacuum baking and cooling, the products have better quality, they stay crispy for longer, and have a longer shelf-life when stored at ambient temperature. This was the beginning of the path on which we are now – a provider mainly focusing on the DACH region.
Mihu: How did bakeXperts follow as the second company to be developed in 2013?
Cermak: bakeXperts was established as a bakery engineering company, to separate a clear focus and take over tasks that were the responsibility of cetravac, initially. As cetrevac’s vacuum cooling success story was beginning, in 2012, it was important for us to concentrate our effort on vacuum conditioning. That’s why we founded bakeXperts, for our planning tasks.
In 2021, with the decision to bring the UDO out of the experimental stage and onto the market, we decided to leave the planning business to others and push the UDO. That is when bakeXperts shifted its focus to vacuum oven development.
Mihu: With new processes and new technologies, a training and adjusting process is usually expected. What training do you offer for the UDO oven technology?
Cermak: We have recently started organizing seminars here, in Switzerland, as well as in Austria and Germany, to explain the technology. Our application engineers, who work for both cetravac and bakeXperts, will be on hand to provide customers with help and advice on-site.
Mihu: What is the reach of the two companies today?
Cermak: We focus on the DACH market, but also reach the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Our headquarters remains in Altstätten, Switzerland, while we are increasingly relocating our production sites to Germany, to Wildeshausen near Bremen and Dortmund.
Mihu: Do you anticipate an expansion in the coming years? And how do you envision the company in 2025 and beyond?
Cermak: Definitely, we want to expand. At cetravac, we will proceed rather cautiously, while at bakeXperts the upcoming iba trade show will set the pace. I myself am planning to entrust cetravac to the competent hands of three of our most deserving employees as part of a management buy-out. My successors are forming a management team with an average age of under 40. At the same time, we are preparing for another milestone: 25 years of exhibiting at iba, which we will celebrate this year in Düsseldorf. The start for us was iba 2000, back then in Munich. I’m looking forward to it.
“A great environment”
Mihu: Why did you decide you wanted to build your expertise and an entire career in the baking industry?
Cermak: I worked for around six years in industrial refrigeration, for companies in Germany and France. Then, rather by chance, I came across a job offer from one of the bakery refrigeration pioneers. That was at the time when the first retarder/proofers were being developed. I took the opportunity, and got to know an industry that has stayed with me, even after such a long time. It’s great to be able to work in an environment where everything smells so good and tastes appetizing! There is hardly anything like it. I was also impressed by the bakers themselves and their down-to-earth attitude.
Mihu: How did the transition from working in the baking industry to starting your own business go? After all, it’s a big step.
Cermak: The reason why I did it is certainly down to my character: I have an allergy to bosses (laughs). I often realized that I would solve tasks differently than they were usually solved, or even better than ‘the way things were always done in the past’. That was certainly the most important reason.
Mihu: What advice would you give to young engineers at the start of their careers?
Cermak: When you are an engineer with a degree, you are a potential inventor. So, you should be one! A good engineer always questions things and thinks about how they can do something better.
Curiosity sparks ideas: “Never stop wondering”
Mihu: Vacuum is one of the pioneering solutions for bakeries. Which technological innovations from the last 30 years would you highlight that have brought similar major advances to bakeries?
Cermak: The invention of retarder-proofers, around 30-40 years ago, was such a step. With this technology, the dough was automatically defrosted and brought to proofing. Fully automated retarder-proofers were the biggest game-
changers. I was involved in the development and market launch of this technology at the end of the 1970s. As I was working on it, I learned the timeline for a new idea to enter the baking industry: it’s about 15 years. This is why I was not surprised when vacuum cooling followed a similar path. In the artisan bakery business, there is no other comparable milestone, in my eyes.
Before that, in the 1960s, the invention of the rack oven was an outstanding achievement. Alongside vacuum cooling, both achievements have been the biggest game-changers. Of course, there are many innovations in the areas of automation, processing and dough preparation, but these are mostly just further developments.
Prof. em. Dr. Dr. e. h. Friedrich Meuser, TU Berlin
Mihu: What role did your background in research and engineering play in your work to develop new solutions?
Cermak: My studies played a certain role in my understanding of mechanics, physics and process engineering. But to be able to do what I have done, curiosity is the most important prerequisite; curiosity and the willingness to leave your comfort zone and find ways to improve things. Only then can you find new paths. Developing new products and launching them on the market is hard work. And sometimes it becomes an extremely expensive ‘hobby’. Success is never guaranteed.
Mihu: And how did it help in your day-to-day work, in putting together the technical teams that work on developing vacuum cooling and baking?
Cermak: The answer is in finding like-minded people with a pioneering spirit, who share this curiosity and are team players. We still do this, every day. Unfortunately, such people are becoming increasingly rare and that won’t get any better in the next few years. That’s why at cetravac, we are only planning a really cautious expansion.
Our goal is to create a product that brings multiple benefits to the customers, because this is the most convincing argument for it to be used. From this point of view, it is always easier when an entirely new product is brought to the market, rather than one in a category or similar solutions. The price is only the second argument.
Solutions to meet changing challenges
Mihu: What makes the UDO exceptional in its baking efficiency? How would you compare today’s biggest challenges in bakery to the most prevalent ones in the past 30 years?
Cermak: Artisan bakers had almost no competition, 30 to 40 years ago. There was no Aldi, Lidl, or industrial baking. In addition, there was also no shortage of skilled workers. Today, we are looking at a completely different picture: the fewer young people who do enter the workforce now, also bring new expectations along, especially related to working times, in an industry particularly known for working nights. Out of necessity, bakeries are being forced to rethink new working models and bring work into the daytime. This makes technology all the more important. Robotics is one solution to the problem, vacuum cooling and vacuum baking are another. The need to adapt and find new working time models also applies to us. Our application engineers work for three weeks and have the fourth week off, to compensate for the weeks when they were often away from home visiting clients, working more than eight hours per day, including travel time. The model has established itself well, which is why we are introducing a similar model for our technicians in service and assembly.
Mihu: What effect did this change have?
Cermak: Everybody has a life outside of the office and it works well for our employees and for the company, too. They like to work for us and do their job well.
Mihu: In what areas of the industry do you see potential for innovation in the future?
Cermak: I think cooling and freezing will probably have incremental improvements going forward, but robotics will grow. There will be many new robotics start-ups in the industry. I think we will already be able to see this at iba this year, because of its great potential. There are many tasks that robots can take on. What is happening today is just the beginning.
Production in Wildeshausen/Germany: Up to four vacuum systems can be assembled at the same time
Mihu: From the perspective of staying curious and always searching for improvements, what emerging ideas do you think will bring improvements, especially for in-store and artisan bakeries?
Cermak: A possible scenario is that many smaller bakeries could join forces to form production cooperations. Each could focus on the production of one product group and supply the others. This could result in considerable savings on equipment and more efficient production capacity utilization.
I have recently seen a number of companies starting out with pre-purchased frozen dough. From the freezer, the products are placed on trays and go into a retarder-proofer, and, from there, to the oven, followed by vacuum cooling and distribution. In other words, the bakery only consists of a frozen food storage unit, a fully automatic proofing machine, rack ovens, vacuum cooler, packaging, order picking and dispatch. Raw material storage, flour silos, mixers and processing lines are nowhere to be found. And the quality of the products is quite impressive. This workflow could save significant investments in equipment and create a lot of room for automatization, using excellent-quality frozen dough that is already available.
In Germany, bakers organize experience exchange groups, where 10-12 bakers transparently share all their business information with their colleagues, including earning figures. Such groups could also evolve to form production cooperation groups that work in a similar way, in a completely collaborative model, rather than competitive. This could lead to substantial savings. However, not only could production become cheaper, but it also has the potential to achieve better results with a higher level of consistency, at the same time.
Mihu: To summarize our conversation today, what do you think is the calling card of cetravac and bakeXperts?
Cermak: We are leaders in vacuum cooling and baking technology, with a proven, partially patented technology. With the new, smaller vacuum chiller units that are now under development, we will further strengthen our position in the market. In addition, we will remain a reliable partner and innovation driver for the baking industry in view of our young new management generation.
Mihu: Thank you for an enlightening conversation, and see you soon, at iba!
