Consumers are snapping up loaves of bread packed with inclusions, whether they’re full of seeds, nuts, fruits or whole grains. They are premium-quality products and are loaded with fiber and nutrition. Their better-for-you whole grain bona fides make them good choices for people interested in nutrition-rich foods. 

As bakers find new and exciting ways to feature inclusions in these hearty breads, they also need to ensure they have the equipment that can handle the dense doughs.

“These types of doughs usually will be on the stiffer side and change from beginning, middle to end as the grains and seeds hydrate and pull moisture from the dough,” said Jim Fontaine, bakery director/field service manager, Reiser. “You’re also using more strengtheners like vital wheat gluten, which may tend to make your dough become bucky as it ages.”

Dividers and rounders must be able to process these doughs without major damage to inclusions while maintaining speed and accuracy along the lines.

The uneven texture and density of breads and rolls packed with inclusions can create challenges.

“Maintaining the structural integrity of the inclusions while ensuring uniformity in dough division can be difficult,” said Bruce Campbell, executive product manager, AMF Flex. “AMF Flex Dividers are designed to handle these complexities with precision.”

Artisan buns and rolls with inclusions require more time and disciplined attention to processing parameters, said Jerry Murphy, vice president of sales, Gemini Bakery Solutions.

“These dough types are very abrasive when running through dividing and rounding equipment,” he said. “They also tend to have lower absorption but require more gentle dividing. Gemini and Werner & Pfleiderer have developed special alloys that lengthen the life cycle of dividers dramatically.”

The sour resistant (SR) dividers are designed to improve machinability of stiff and high-gluten doughs and doughs with inclusions, Murphy added.

Fruits like cranberries and blueberries in breads can be broken and smeared during processing.

“Most people want the fine definition between the color of the bread and the particulate. They don’t want one to bleed into the other,” said Andres Lopez, business development manager, Handtmann Inc. “Ninety percent of the complaints you hear is from the smearing of the particulates. From that standpoint, that’s one thing we pride ourselves on is our feeding system. We don’t smear the particulates. On a conical rounder, you may get some smearing there. But the dry seeding, I don’t think there’s an issue.”

For industrial production, there are volumetric dividers for high quality and modularity and dedicated lines for extruders for hamburger and hot dog buns with high-capacity power, said Julia Kneidinger, marketing manager for Koenig Bakery Systems.

“Koenig features volumetric dough dividers and rounders which can process all sorts of doughs,” she said. “Customers ask for dividers which enable doughs with different sorts of grains, with fruits, chocolate chunks or similar. The Koenig piston dividers and moulders are ideal for this as the dough openings are large enough to avoid blockage.”

Inclusions can make things tricky as they can throw off weights of doughs.

“When adding inclusions to a dough, especially in larger ratios, you can run the risk of having varying weights for the same volume of dough,” said John Giacoio, Rheon. “This is never an issue with the Rheon stress-free systems because our dividers cut by weight not volume.”

He added that the company’s systems won’t break down fruits like raisins and cranberries or even diced cheese cubes during the forming process.

This article is an excerpt from the February 2025 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Dividing & Rounding, click here.