Baker Perkins: Twin-Screw Extrusion Creates Production Flexibility The introduction of twin-screw extrusion to ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal production in the 1980s, followed by the development of co-extrusion by Baker Perkins for high-value, center-filled product applications, has created significant benefits for the RTE cereal industry. As well as the ability to develop an array of products that would be impossible using other methods, extrusion has brought both short- and long-term flexibility to the manufacture of RTE cereals. With regard to short-term flexibility, modest product runs are now profitable thanks to rapid, simple changeover and the ability to develop new products quickly and economically. Long-term flexibility is gained through cereal extrusion lines that can be designed to be expanded or adapted on a modular basis at any time to increase output or widen a product range. |