GB2430650A

GB2430650A - Printed sugar plaques

Info

Publication number: GB2430650A
Application number: GB0619098A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Stephen Patterson
Original assignee: Sugarfayre Ltd
Current assignee: Sugarfayre Ltd
Priority date: 2005-09-29
Filing date: 2006-09-28
Publication date: 2007-04-04
Also published as: GB0619098D0; GB0519884D0

Abstract

A method and apparatus for the production of edible, printed sugar plaques, the apparatus comprising a printing station (6) having at least one digital printhead a drying station (8), a control station and conveying means (16) for moving sugarpaste substrates to be printed through the printing station (6) for printing and on to the drying station (8) after printing for drying, the control station comprising means to select a print image, and means to guide the at least one digital printhead to reproduce said image on at least one sugarpaste substrate. The apparatus may also include a laminating station for forming said sugar plaques, a cutting station (10) where any excess material is removed and a metal detecting station (12) for detecting any metal fragments contained therein. The metal detecting station (12) has means to reject any sugar plaque found to contain metal.

Description

Printed Suaar Plaques The present invention relates to a method and

apparatus for the production of edible, printed sugar plaques.

It is known to decorate celebration and novelty cakes and other items such as doughnuts, mince pies, biscuits etc. using printed sugar decorations.

Such decorations can be individually crafted by hand by specialist cake decorators. However this is time consuming and therefore an expensive procedure. Alternatively the decorations can be bought from specialised manufacturers of printed sugar plaques and then applied to the cakes.

Specialist manufactures of printed sugar plaques employ large scale production techniques to produce large production runs of a printed sugar plaque of a particular design. Several large pieces of dedicated machinery is : .*, required for each stage of the process and each machine requires up to five S... *.S.

skilled operators to control and monitor the process. The sugarpaste in its various stages of processing is manually transported between each stage on bakers trolleys, with the pushing of these trolleys accounting for up to 80% of the work place accidents. Plus in order to create a new design for a sugar S...

S. . . . . plaques tt is necessary to scan in the art work, desciminate it into the four component colours, output a negative and expose a screen to UV light for each of the primary printing colours red, blue, yellow and black. During the manufacturing process the four component colours are printed consequentively onto the sugarpaste substrate and registration between each print is critical in order to ensure that the final image is not blurred. Therefore considerable skill and time is required to set the equipment to print each design.

The making of the decorations in large productions runs is more cost effective, because the set up costs are more widely absorbed. However, smaller production runs to produce a more limited design will increase individual unit costs. Furthermore, when a customer requires a non standard design, lead time can be as much as 10 days for the creation of the print screens and configuration of the equipment.

The main clients for the manufactured sugar plaques are the large retailers with associated supply chains, who are able to buy the finished decorations in bulk and benefit from the reduction in unit cost which they are then able to pass on to their customers. This makes it difficult for small : ***, bakeries to compete because they are not able to buy in bulk. Furthermore, a ***.

key area in which a small bakery could compete, that is the production of smaller runs of a unique design, are cost prohibitive because of the increased unit cost from the supplier and associated lead times to obtain the printed sugar plaques. * * *S..

It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and process which overcomes or alleviates the above described disadvantages.

In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention there is provided an apparatus for making printed sugar plaques comprising a printing station having at least one digital print head, a drying station, a control station and conveying means for moving sugarpaste substrates to be printed through the printing station for printing and on to the drying station after printing for drying, the control station comprising means to select a print Image, and means to guide the at least one digital print head to reproduce said image on at least one sugarpaste substrate.

By providing an in-line automatic process it is possible to economically produce smaller quantities of printed sugar plaques with reduced lead times for supply of a new design, in that digital printing enables fast selection and accurate reproduction of an image.

The apparatus may comprise a cutting station with cutting means to cut the final shape of the sugar plaque from the sugarpaste substrate, the sugarpaste substrate being conveyed to said cutting station on said conveying means. The cutting station may be provided downstream of said drying station and/or said printing station. The control station may have means to : ** control the cutting operation of the cutting station. By controlling the cutting *.S.

operation there is less waste. *S*.

The cutting station may comprise suitable cutting means for example a blade, laser cutter, or water jet cutter. In a preferred embodiment a water jet *..: cutter is provided and the water may be pressurized to 3800 bar (55, 000 psi). * I

Water jet cutters are used to machine heavy duty engineering materials for example metals such as steel and not in cutting water soluble items such as sugarpaste, since sugar dissolves rapidly in water. It has been found that rather than dissolving the sugar the jet can be adjusted to provide an accurate cut, compared to that of a cutter blade since there is no tool contact and therefore no edge deformation. Furthermore, since there is no contact the cut is clean, eliminating the possible transfer of germs from a cutting blade. Also, there is a reduction in downtime since it is not necessary to sharpen the blade and less likelihood of metal contamination. Because water jet cutting is a cold process it does not produce heat, which may adversely affect the quality of the cut. Also, the water jet trajectory is more readily controlled by the software, for example the speed of the cut can be adjusted throughout the cutting of a profile to better cut a particular contour.

The apparatus may comprise a packaging station downstream of said drying station, the sugar plaques being transported to said packaging station on said conveying means. The control station may have means to control the packaging operation of the packaging station. By controlling the packaging, the correct size of pack can be selected or formed to best fit the finished * .. sugar plaque. * * *

*::::* The apparatus may comprise a laminating station with means to form sugarpaste substrates for printing, the laminating station being provided upstream of said printing station and having means to place a formed sugarpaste substrate on said conveying means. The control station may have means to control the formation of sugarpaste substrates at the laminating station.

The apparatus may comprise a mixing station upstream of the laminating station comprising a mixer adapted to mix the ingredients of a sugarpaste formulation. The mixing station may have means to dispense selected quantities of mixed sugarpaste to the laminating station. The control station may have means to control at least one of the quantity of sugarpaste and ingredients of sugarpaste added to the mixer.

The apparatus may have a metal detecting station provided down stream of the said cutting station and the metal detecting station may have means to reject a sugar plaque in which metal has been detected.

The cutting station may comprise means for collecting waste sugarpaste produced by the cutting operation. The apparatus may comprise a recycling unit for transporting said collected sugarpaste waste to said mixing station, the mixing station having means to introduce the waste into the mixer.

The mixing unit may have sensors for detecting the quantity of waste added to the mixer, and adjustment means to adjust quantity of at least one of waste and individual sugarpaste ingredients added to the mixer based on said : ,.* sensor readings. *S..

The control station may comprise means for inputting at least one digitalimage. *

The control station may comprise text input means for inserting text into an print image. The control station may comprise manipulation means for * * **..

adjustment of at least one of said text and/or said image.

In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of manufacture of a printed sugar plaque comprising the steps of selecting an image to be digitally printed on a sugarpaste substrate, conveying a sugarpaste substrate into a digital printing station, digitally printing said print image onto the sugarpaste substrate, conveying the printed sugarpaste substrate into a drying station and drying the printed sugarpaste substrate.

The method may include the step of continuously conveying sugarpaste substrates through said printing and drying stations, and selecting an image to print on each substrate. The method may include the step of printing different images on each substrate.

The method may comprise the step of manipulating the selected image before printing.

The method may comprise the step of cutting the sugarpaste substrate after the image has been printed thereon to form a sugar plaque, the method may further comprise the step of adjustment of the cutting operation based on said selected image.

The method may comprise the step of preparing a sugarpaste S..

substrate for printing including the steps of mixing the ingredients of a sugarpaste formulation and laminating the sugarpaste to form at least one sugapaste substrate.

The method may include the step of recycling waste material cut from Sq..

the substrate during the cutting step. The method may include the step of adding the waste material into the ingredients to be mixed and may include the step of adjusting the quantity of at least one ingredient and/or quantity of waste based on detected condition of sugapaste formulation.

The method may comprise the step of conveying the sugar plaque to a packaging station and packaging said sugar plaque.

The method may comprise the step of adjusting at least one of printing, image, drying, packaging, and culling based on at least one of ambient conditions, sugarpaste formulation, print ink formulation and print image required.

By way of example only a specific embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawing which is a schematic view of an apparatus for the production of printed sugar plaques constructed in accordance with the invention.

The apparatus for the production of sugar plaques is a linear machine comprising a number of stations including a mixing station 2, a laminating station 4, a digital printing station 6, a drying station 8, a cutting station 10, a metal detection station 12 and a packaging station 14.

: ** The apparatus functions as follows the ingredients for a sugarpaste **..

formulation is fed into the mixer 2 where it is blended before being deposited onto an endless conveyor 16 which will transport the sugarpaste through the various stations of the machine. The first port of call is the laminating station 4 whereat the sugapaste is formed into printable sheets. The sheets are then S'.... conveyed into the digital printing station which contains at least one digital print head. Underneath the digital print head the desired printed image(s) is digitally directly printed onto the sheets. The sheets are then conveyed into a drying station 8 which dries the ink before the sheets are conveyed into a cutting station 101 where any excess material is removed to form the finished sugar plaque. The printed sugar plaque is then conveyed through a metal detecting station 12 which scans the sugar plaque to ensure that there are no metal fragments therein. The metal detection station has means to reject any sugar plaque found to contain metal. The plaques are then conveyed to a packaging station 14 in which the completed sugar plaques are automatically packaged for shipment and/or storage.

A recycle loop 18 is provided between the cutting station 10 and the mixing station in the form of a conveyor 20. The cutting station 10 has means to collect the excess material cut from the sugar plaques and to direct it to the conveyor 20 of the recycle loop 18 for delivery back to the mixing station 2. at which it is added into the contents of mixer 2 for blending into the fresh ingredients of the sugarpaste added to the mixer 2.

A control station (not illustrated) is digitally connected to the printing station 6 to control the operation of the digital printing heads. The control * *. station includes a processing unit, a memory, manipulation means and input S...

means in the form of a touch screen. The memory comprises a plurality of stored images and selection of require image for printing onto the sugarpaste sheet selected there from via the touch screen. The size, shape, orientation, colours, hue and pattern of the selected image can be adjusted via the manipulation means with the required selection being made via the touch screen. Additionally the number of sugar plaques to be printed can be selected via the touch screen and the processing means calculates the amount of and type of edible ink required to make the print(s) of the selection.

The processing means then forwards this information to the digital printer via a control line and to an ink reservoir 22 which delivers the ink to the print station 6. Sensors inside the printing station 6 sense the position of the

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sugarpaste sheet and commence printing the selected image when the print head is aligned therewith.

In addition to stored images the control unit is provided with at least one digital input which enables a new image to be loaded into the database and then selected and manipulated as described above. Suitable digital inputs include without limitation floppy-drives, cd-drives, dvd-dnves, zip- drives, digital readers of memory cards, USB ports, optical scanners, video input, intranet connection, internet connection and wi-fl.

The manipulation means additionally comprises means to combine and/or superimpose selected Images and to insert text on to the image, and means to manipulate the font of the text, with the required selections and input of text from the touch screen.

* *. Although a touch screen as been described as the selection means the * * * I...

control unit could incorporation as well or instead other input means such as keyboard, mouse and joystick.

In addition to the type and amount of ink required, the processing means calculates the type, amount and duration of heat required to dry the ink *S.

and sugarpaste based on sugarpaste type, ink type, quantities of ink and sugarpaste and ambient conditions and forwards this to the drying station. To this end the control station is connection to a control unit of the drying station.

Types of heat selectable include hot air, infrared and radiant heat.

The control unit is also connected to a control unit of the cutting station and the processing unit calculates the final dimensions/profile of the sugar plaque and forwards this information to the cutting station. The culling station control unit then guides the cutting tool to cut out the finished plaque.

Sensors provided in the print and cutting stations 6, 10 provide information on the position of the sugar paste sheet to the control station which is used in the processing unit in the determination of the final profile of the printed sugar plaque.

The control station is additionally connected to the control unit of the packaging station the size of package used for a particular sugar plaque is automatically selected. This ensures that suitable packaging is selected to minimise damage to the plaque during shipping.

The control station is additionally connected to the control units of the mixing and laminating stations respectively and the amount of sugarpaste delivered from the mixing station to the conveyor 16 and the thickness and : ** size of the sheets of suagarpaste controlled based on the selected image. To this end the processing unit calculates the amount of sugarpaste, size of plaque and thickness of plaque required for a given design based on a database of sugapaste types stored in the memory and instructs the mixing unit to deliver the required amount and the laminating station to produce a sheet of sugarpaste of the required size and thickness. The type of sugarpaste used is input via the touch screen, enabling a suitable sugarpaste selection for, for example, special dietary needs and/or final intended use of the sugar plaque. The control unit is programmable to enable entry of details of new sugarpaste type, new ink types etc. A suitable ink formulation for processing in the described manner comprises a mixture of monopropylene glycol, glycerine, water, E104, E122, E133 and E172.

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In a further embodiment dispensing units are provided on the mixing unit to measure the required amount of each ingredient of the sugarpaste formulation into the mixer such as icing sugar, water, glucose, oil, gums and emulsifiers. A sugarpaste suitable for processing in the described apparatus comprises a mixture of icing sugar, xanthan gum, acacia gum, emulsifier, vegetable oil, invert sugar, glucose and glycerine. Sensors within the mixer measure the consistency and moisture content of the sugarpaste and transmit this information to the control unit, which in turn instructs the dispensing units to dispense appropriate amounts of each ingredient to achieve the required consistency. This is particularly useful to take into account the adjustment to the sugarpaste formulation based on the amount of recycled waste sugarpaste returned to the mixing station.

: . The cutting tool may comprise suitable cutting means such as a blade, laser, or water jet cutter.

Although a packing station has been described, this could be omitted or not used if the printed sugar plaques are to be used immediately, or packaged by hand. The recycle loop could also be omitted. The mixer and laminator could be omitted if the sugarpaste is provided in sheet form.

A weigh station could be included to check the weight of the completed plaque before packaging to ensure that it meets the required specification.

The weigh station including means to reject substandard plaques before packaging.

Claims

1. An apparatus for making printed sugar plaques comprising a printing station having at least one digital print head, a drying station, a control station and conveying means for moving sugarpaste substrates to be printed through the printing station for printing and on to the drying station after printing for drying, the control station comprising means to select a print image, and means to guide the at least one digital print head to reproduce said image on at least one sugarpaste substrate.

2. An apparatus according to Claim 1, comprising a cutting station with cutting means to cut the final shape of the sugar plaque from the sugarpaste substrate, the sugarpaste substrate being conveyed to said cutting station on said conveying means. S...

3. An apparatus according to Claim 2, wherein the cutting station is : * 15 provided downstream of said drying station and/or said printing station.

4. An apparatus as claimed in Claim 2 or 3, wherein the control station Si..

has means to control the cutting operation of the cutting station.

5. An apparatus according to Claim 2. 3 or 4. wherein the cutting means comprises at least one water jet cutter.

6. An apparatus according to Claim 5, wherein the water jet cutter is adapted to eject a water jet pressurized to 3800 bar (55,000 psi).

7. The apparatus according to any one of Claims 2 to 6, comprising a metal detecting station down stream of the said cutting station, the metal detecting station having means to reject a sugar plaque in which metal has been detected.

8. The apparatus according to any one of Claim 2 to 7, wherein the cutting station comprises means for collecting waste sugarpaste produced by the cutting operation.

9. The apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising a packaging station downstream of said drying station, the sugar plaques being transported to said packaging station on a said conveying means.

10. The apparatus according to Claim 9, wherein the control station has means to control the packaging operation of the packaging station.

11. The apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims S..

comprising a laminating station with means to form sugarpaste *. *5 substrates for printing, the laminating station being provided upstream of said printing station and having means to place a * formed sugarpaste substrate on said conveying means. *..S

12. The apparatus according to Claim 11, wherein the control station has means to control the formation of sugarpaste substrates at the laminating station.

13. The apparatus according to Claim 11 or 12 comprising a mixing station upstream of the laminating station which has a mixer adapted to mix the ingredients of a sugarpaste formulation.

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14. The apparatus according to Claim 13. wherein the mixing station has means to dispense selected quantities of mixed sugarpaste to the laminating station.

15. The apparatus according to Claim 13 or 14, wherein the control station has means to control at least one of the quantity of sugarpaste and ingredients of sugarpaste added to the mixer.

16. The apparatus according to Claim 13, 14 or 15 comprising a recycling unit for transporting the or sugarpaste waste to said mixing station, the mixing station having means to introduce the waste into the mixer.

17. The apparatus according to Claim 16, wherein the mixing unit comprises sensors for detecting the quantity of waste added to the mixer, and adjustment means to adjust quantity of at least one of waste and individual sugarpaste ingredients added to the mixer based on said sensor readings.

:.:

18. An apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the control station comprises means for inputting at least one digital image.

19. An apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the control station comprises text input means for inserting text into a print image.

20. An apparatus according to Claim 18 or 19, wherein the control station comprises manipulation means for adjustment of at least one of said text and/or said image.

21. A method of manufacture of a printed sugar plaque comprising the steps of selecting an image to be digitally printed on a sugarpaste substrate, conveying a sugarpaste substrate into a digital printing station, digitally printing said print image onto the sugarpaste substrate, conveying the printed sugarpaste substrate into a drying station and drying the printed sugarpaste substrate.

22. A method according to Claim 21, including the step of continuously conveying sugarpaste substrates through said printing and drying stations, and selecting an image to print on each substrate.

23. The method according to Claim 22 comprising the step of manipulating the selected image before printing.

24. The method according to Claim 22 or 23, including the step of S..

* printing different images on each substrate. *.***

25. The method according to any one of Claims 21 to 24, comprising the step of cutting sugarpaste substrate after the image has been printed thereon to form a sugar plaque. SSS*

26. The method according to Claim 25, comprising the step of adjustment of the cutting operation based on said selected image.

27. The method according to Claim 25 or 26, including the step of recycling waste material cut from the substrate during the cutting step.

28. The method according to any one of Claims 21 to 26, comprising the step of preparing a sugarpaste substrate for printing including the steps of mixing the ingredients of a sugarpaste formulation and laminating the sugarpaste to form at least one sugarpaste substrate.

29. The method according to Claim 28, including the step of adding the/or waste material into the ingredients to be mixed.

30. The method according to Claim 29, including the step of adjusting the quantity of at least one ingredient and/or quantity of waste based on detected condition of sugarpaste formulation.

31. The method according to any one of the preceding claims comprising the step of conveying the sugar plaque to a packaging station and packaging said sugar plaque.

32. The method according to any one of the preceding claims comprising the step of adjusting at least one of printing, image, drying, packaging, and cutting based on at least one of ambient * S * conditions, sugarpaste formulation, print ink formulation and print *SSSS * * image required. * 0

*****

33. An apparatus for making printed sugar plaques constructed and adapted to operate substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying drawing.

34. A method of manufacture of printed sugar plaques substantially as described herein.