Butter, love and stainless steel: the perfect biscuit recipe

Taste of tradition

Safe beneath the battlements of the Château de Chambord in Maslives — perhaps the most emblematic castle of the French Renaissance — a family-owned baked goods factory has been diligently producing high-quality biscuits, cookies, muffins and more for longer than 40 years. Situated in the Loire region of France, the Biscuiterie de Chambord offers a wide range of gourmet pastry products made from rigorously selected local ingredients.

“Our pastry chefs are true artisans of taste,” says Jonathan Chigot, General Director of Biscuiterie de Chambord: “While respecting the biscuit-making tradition, we’re committed to growth and putting all our know-how into the development of novel flavors, new ranges and, at the same time, maintaining our reputation in France and around the world as a connoisseur supplier of specialty goods."

Expanding boundaries by partnering with GEA Bakery

Wishing to increase the company’s output and develop its portfolio to enter the savory snacks sector, a decision was made to invest in state-of-the-art technology. “We had to invest fairly quickly to give ourselves new impetus and go beyond our regional presence,” said Jonathan “as well as branch out into other national and international markets.”

This is when, like a proud knight in shining armor, GEA Bakery came into the picture. The company’s GEA Bake Depositor LC has been designed to meet the exact needs of a modern, changing and demanding food industry. Featuring an innovative depositing system with individual lobe pumps and feed rollers, chamber filling is optimized to ensure highly accurate functionality with a wide range of materials. Fully PLC-controlled and easily programmable, the machine complies with all current hygiene and security standards. Offering working speeds of 30–40 cycles/min, depending on the application, each machine can also be accessorized with a wire cut unit, twist device and/or dosing plates.

Enhancing flexibility with GEA technologies

Flexibility was a key consideration and being able to run tests on a machine at GEA’s plant in Italy was instrumental in terms of influencing the buying decision. “Not only does this high-quality equipment ensure rapid production, it's also quiet to run and very versatile. We can change the dough with ease, for example, and create a variety of products,” notes Stéphane Cabret, production manager: “What’s more, the dosage is both constant and very linear, so every biscuit is identical. It’s a turnkey solution for us and offers all the options we need.”

“The advantage of investing in GEA technology is that it will enable us to produce many different and additional recipes, which means we can engage with more customers. Given that we have 70 recipes and several processing methods, that adds up to 300–400 different products, so a multipurpose solution was essential” says Clémentine Ducrocq, operations and development manager at Biscuiterie de Chambord.

“We needed a machine that could make every type of biscuit you can imagine,” concluded Jonathan Chigot, General Director of Biscuiterie de Chambord, “as well as being able to do contract work for clients. We’ve already adapted several recipes and our pastry chefs are enjoying the freedom to experiment.”

“We’ve been very impressed with GEA’s equipment, including its design, the tools, materials, etc. Now, it’s time to push the machine to its limits, make a few adjustments and find out just how much we can achieve.” Much like the castle walls of the white colossus that sits above the town and has protected its people for generations, GEA’s technology will secure the integrity of the Biscuiterie de Chambord and ensure the ongoing — and impeccable — quality of its many products. Both companies share a mutual desire to bake both care and passion into everything they do.

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