Since 2015 you've been supplying bakeries with coated trays and molds. Not a long time, and two years fell more or less under the effects of the pandemic. How has the new division developed?
Very positively. The baking industry's share of monthly revenue today ranges between 10 and 50%. Calculated over the year, we're at around 20%. However, many of our bakery customers only buy from us once a year, or even much less often, depending on usage intensity - for a simple reason: our trays last longer. That's a certain disadvantage for us. But I'm convinced that bakers will spread the word.
acs attracted attention back then because you use a solvent-free coating that you developed yourselves. However, it wasn't worthwhile to renew the coating. Until then it was common practice, and also a cost factor, to have trays recoated regularly. How did bakers react to that statement?
Our coatings aren't just solvent-free, but their production is also nearly waste-free and increasingly free of PTFE/PFOA/Teflon. Regarding recoating, removing the old coating has in the past usually proven so labor-intensive that it simply wasn't worthwhile price-wise. So bakers who asked us about recoating in the past always chose new trays and molds after comparing prices. The situation is different now, though, because raw material costs for aluminum and (stainless) steel have risen dramatically as well. So, as far as refitting is concerned, we've done our homework and developed new, cheaper solutions. Today we can recoat trays both with our own DURAPEK coating and with third-party products using PTFE or PFA. That makes sense from an ecological standpoint.
"Based on our experience, bakeries can save a noticeable amount of energy by switching to our products."
Dr. Christoph Stecher, Managing Director, acs Coating Systems
Alkali trays, trays for rolls, and trays for very sugary products all have to meet different requirements. What makes up the majority of the trays you supply today?
Our roll trays. We can't always say for certain what ultimately gets baked on the trays. Just this much: we know that customers who only occasionally use alkali treatment often use our "normal" roll trays for it too. Trays specifically designed to be alkali-resistant are comparatively expensive and should accordingly be used specifically for alkali baked goods. For sugar, even our normal coating already performs very well compared to others. That was confirmed to us by the world's largest oven manufacturer, who ran test series. In addition, at the request of a large baking operation, we now also have a special coating for fine baked goods in our program. To distinguish it, it's colored blue.
By now you have experience in the baking industry. How many cycles do the trays you supply reach, and do you give guarantees on that?
Giving guarantees on cycle counts is generally difficult, because as a supplier we can't track the cycles ourselves. But from practical experience we know that cycles beyond 5,000 are the rule rather than the exception for DURAPEK coatings. For one major customer with very good process transparency, we actually successfully granted a guarantee of 7,000 cycles, which meant doubling the cycles compared to their previous trays. The trays will certainly last even longer. Theoretically, with our new, improved variant, we should be able to achieve more than 10,000 cycles. In lab wear tests, we're actually at 300,000 cycles.
What have you improved?
We've additionally built in an entirely new high-performance polymer. That makes the coatings even more robust and wear-resistant, including at the surface. This also allowed us to further extend the durability of the non-stick effect. That applies to both DURAPEK and OBSIDIAN SHELL®.
Which applications in the baking industry are each coating best suited for?
For bakeries, DURAPEK, now available in several variants, is usually the best fit. That's due to its better chemical resistance, including against alkali, and its higher abrasion resistance and durability. OBSIDIAN SHELL®, on the other hand, withstands even higher temperatures up to 450 °C (instead of 300 °C) and is better suited to frozen products. Theoretically, they should also be better suited for sugary products, though we haven't yet been able to confirm that in practice.
In 2017 you also entered the business of mold sets. What role does this segment play today?
We sell individual molds and mold sets, with a growing trend. Bakers report that the browning behavior of baked goods in DURAPEK-coated molds differs from molds with PTFE/Teflon. In some cases baking times can be shortened by around 10%, similar to the trays. Of course, we don't reach the unit numbers of in-store baking trays.
Are the requirements different than for trays?
Indeed. In collaboration with a major customer, we developed our own mold coating. Baking trays are subject to greater mechanical wear. That's why their coating has to be scratch-resistant and robust. For bread molds, the non-stick property is paramount above all else. The loaves should "fall out" as easily as possible when unmolding. Our modified coating has a special top layer for that. We're still at the trial stage, but have already reached over 5,000 cycles. Molds, by the way, are also coated on the outside with us. That way they not only last longer, but it also improves heat absorption. This produces faster, more even browning of the baked goods, meaning energy can be saved.
How wear-resistant are the coated trays when they're run through a tray-cleaning machine daily? How much do dishwashers strain the coatings?
Coated trays are generally not run through tray-cleaning machines. But we've recently started offering a variant that can withstand that. We're actually a bit proud to have achieved that. The composition of the layers and their baking process were modified for this. Here we can leverage our advantage of developing the coatings ourselves and also manufacturing the paints ourselves. We know what needs to be done. In tests the durability of the trays was confirmed. We ran them through a tray-cleaning machine with plastic brushes 1,000 times and couldn't detect any significant abrasion. Since we don't know every tray-cleaning machine and its settings, though, we always recommend consulting with us first or running preliminary trials. For some customers, the trays have already been in use for one and a half years. There have been no negative feedback or complaints so far. Dishwasher use is entirely uncritical. Of course, the correct machine settings must be observed. If rinsing with water afterward isn't sufficient, detergent residue can reduce the non-stick effect.
In recent years, not only have many loading and unloading processes been automated, but the entire circulation of trays and molds has come under scrutiny, to avoid damage from rough handling. Do machine builders work with you on this point?
Damage from "rough handling" is increasingly a problem. Our answer to automated processes includes, for example, our patented multi-bake and grill plates with a surrounding channel. They don't warp in the oven, are especially stable, and are easy to grip thanks to the wide rim. We developed these trays at the request of an oven builder.
When you turned to the baking industry, terms like sustainability and environmental compatibility were only just entering the discussion. Has that changed?
Honestly? I think we were too early to market, or the message just hadn't landed properly yet. For many buyers, purchase price is the primary factor. Sustainability has so far been more of a topic for bakery raw materials and marketing, less so for coatings. At the same time, many bakers have had bad experiences with (other) coatings in the past and are somewhat skeptical about durability. What we're aiming for, though, is that customers can do both with our products - act in an environmentally friendly way and save costs overall. Take the alkali perforated tray as an example: together with bakers, we calculated that the savings from eliminating baking paper (handling, material, disposal) combined with reduced baking time and temperature pay back the higher price within a few months. The same applies to roll trays. Against the backdrop of rapidly rising energy prices and growing environmental awareness, though, we're noticing a shift in the market. One of the larger players we gained as a customer a year ago told us that with our baking trays, they were able to save around 300 euros in electricity costs per branch. Reducing electricity consumption was also the main reason the bakery decided in our favor.
The pandemic didn't leave the baking industry unscathed. Craftspeople had to accept losses in the catering business, and suppliers of frozen baked goods also lost revenue. Did you inevitably feel the dip too?
We felt the dip. However, two large orders from customers among Germany's top 20 largest baking operations at the start of the lockdown phase in 2020 helped us keep production going. Overall, we had no drop in revenue and are registering strong growth again this year. We also used the time to optimize internal processes. Parts of the plant were redesigned, solar panels were installed on the roof, and the vehicle fleet was electrified.
Producing baked goods today is on one hand a regional business, and on the other a global industrial business. How internationally positioned are you today?
As a young mid-sized company, we can't really describe ourselves as international. We lack the sales structures. Attending iba would certainly have helped us. Still, we supply customers who deliver worldwide. In that sense, our products are distributed internationally.
Let's turn to the outlook - what are you currently researching?
We're a research company at heart and are always working on something new. The impulses often come from our customers, but also from research contracts. We're focusing on three priorities:
- achieving maximum robustness with reduced material use, both for the metal substrates and the coatings
- reducing oven times and cycles in the coating process to save energy
- developing new ultra-thin coatings, using much less material and much less energy. We're involved in corresponding research projects. I'm convinced that in the coming years we can achieve entirely new coatings that don't yet exist today. To what extent these will be relevant for bakers, we'll evaluate then. That's a goal for the day after tomorrow.
Dr. Stecher, thank you very much for the conversation.