The Ergonomic Benefits of Automated Breading

Hand breading for centuries has been a slow, messy and inefficient process that requires a person to lean over a breading lug with their face down in the flour or breading ingredients. It is a tedious and challenging job to teach people the proper method of breading and is inconsistent from cook to cook and shift to shift. Staffing the position of a fry cook is a challenge as well, with high turnover rates and the excessive amount of time require to train. 

The Optimax breading system changes all that! 

The operator stands up with less bending to bread chicken, onion ring, or other items. Since the machine does all the work, all the operator has to do is load product onto the batter conveyor at the top and rack the finished product as it comes off the breading conveyor. So they can't short cut the process and there is less physical handling of the food. The result is consistent breading perfection, cook to cook, shift to shift and store to store.   

Improve Core Operations Capability

Breading chicken, onion rings or shrimp with Optimax takes less time, simplifies the procedures needed for breading, and allows for repeatability of the process by removing process variation. The simplification of procedures allows employees to become more efficient, freeing up time for cooks to accomplish other tasks. Time savings and simplification also enable training personnel to concentrate more time on proper racking procedure, cleanliness, and other critical tasks in place of complicated, cumbersome breading procedures. Consistently breaded chicken, properly racked, cooks better, thus reducing the number of customer complaints and increasing customer return-and-repurchase rates. In short, Optimax takes the most difficult job in the kitchen and makes it one of the easiest.

Increased Store Level Margins

The Optimax increases store level margins by lowering the consumption of breading ingredients. Stores have shown decreases in flour, milk, egg, salt and seasoning up to 40%. The Optimax has proven to significantly decrease oil usage and extend oil life because less flour is blown off in the fryer versus hand-breaded chicken or other products.