Spiral freezers and coolers are essential to industrial bakery production, but conventional systems often rely on overdrive, using friction between the drum and belt. This can cause product movement, slippage and frequent operator intervention. Intralox‘s DirectDrive™ System takes a different approach, engaging the modular plastic belt directly with the drum so both move together.
Protecting Product Quality and Uptime
Accurate product positioning is vital when cooling or freezing croissants, scones, breads, rolls and other delicate bakery products. By preventing products from sliding or shifting, DirectDrive helps preserve spacing, orientation and shape, protecting quality ahead of downstream packaging.
Butter, oil, grease and flour can compromise friction-driven belts, causing slippage, unplanned stops and repeated cleaning. Because DirectDrive does not depend on friction, it maintains positive engagement even in greasy conditions and supports continuous running with floury products. Fewer interruptions can increase uptime, reduce sanitation costs and keep production moving.
A UK scone manufacturer installed new spiral coolers equipped with DirectDrive and reported a 70% increase in processing capacity, eliminating a production bottleneck.
Maximising Space and Operational Efficiency
The system is available in structure-supported and self-stacking configurations. The hygienic DirectDrive Stacker is particularly suited to low-profile pastries and freezers or proofers where airflow is critical. Its belt supports its own weight along both edges, eliminating the traditional carryway and allowing twice as much belting within the same vertical space as a structure-supported spiral.
For bakeries facing floor-space or height restrictions, this creates opportunities to increase capacity without expanding the equipment footprint, while helping minimise belt breakage and destacking.
Without overdrive to manage, DirectDrive also simplifies spiral controls, accommodates heavier loads and helps maintain accurate product positioning. Intralox’s Spiral Optimization Program provides hands-on technical support to select configurations matched to individual products, throughput requirements and plant layouts.
By addressing common sources of downtime and product instability, DirectDrive helps make freezing and cooling more dependable, productive stages of industrial bakery operations. This is particularly valuable for high-volume lines, where interruptions can affect output targets, labour requirements and the efficiency of subsequent packaging processes.
