Draw me an oven
Gouet have been supplying industrial baking systems for over 50 years, with bread being the traditional bedrock of the French company's expertise. Jérôme Dartiguenave, vice president sales, speaks to Annie Launois.
How did Gouet begin?
In 1905, the Gouet brothers, who were masons, devoted their time to the building of ovens for the bakery sector. In 1923, André Gouet, their nephew, took over the management and started to develop the company. After this, the key dates in the firm's history are: 1950, when brickwork was replaced by metal; 1955, when the first cyclothermic deck oven was produced; 1958, when the first tunnel oven was manufactured and; 1968, when the first automatic line (1500 loaves/hour) became operational.
Today, more than 3 million baguettes, 5 million croissants, 1 million pizzas, and 2 million artisan breads are baked in our industrial baking systems every day.
Has the market for bakery ovens evolved much over recent years?
Though modern ovens may not look very different from what they used to 10 or 20 years ago, the sector has actually seen a lot of innovations in terms of reliability, ease of maintenance and operation.
Are Gouet ovens suitable for all types of bread?
Gouet has been involved in baking technology for many years. Today, our know-how enables us to produce a wide range of ovens using radiation, conduction (stone, steel plates), convection and forced convection with tunnel, as well as vertical conveying. As a result, we can objectively recommend the most suitable solution to meet the products and the clients requirements.
Gouet has a particular expertise in the production of artisan bread (stone tunnel oven), viennoiserie (radiation tunnel oven), pizzas and delicatessen (forced convection turbo-jet oven), and baguettes (vertical oven).
What are the latest innovations at Gouet?
Some of our most recent innovations include the automatic brushing system of the stones, the automatic greasing system of the chains and easier access to important parts of the stone tunnel oven.
Our new loader has a 4 metre wide wing, which can deposit 192 ciabattas of 70x70mm onto the stones, inside the oven, directly under the steam zone.
We have also recently achieved the full automation of all settings of the baking line.
You have chosen to favour gas over oil. Can you explain why?
Gouet used to manufacture thermo-oil ovens, which are perfect for "batch ovens". The inertia of the oven copes well with the discontinuous infeed and outfeed operations, providing a consistent temperature during these operations. In continuous baking, with travelling ovens, the oven is naturally balanced. There is therefore no point in using a thermo-oil oven, which costs more to buy and to operate, requires more space, and is not as environmentally-friendly, with no benefit for the product.
In addition, baking on pans can be more difficult with oilheated ovens due to the lower temperature that is achievable for radiation.
Is the bakery oven sector highly competitive? How do you set apart from your competitors?
The bakery oven sector is indeed very competitive. Today, there is a large number of oven manufacturers on the market, including in developing countries, where labour costs are very low.
Today, it is only thanks to quality and innovation that an equipment manufacturer based in a developed country can compete.
There are only a few companies that can provide their customers with the required knowhow to manufacture full automatic lines, knowledge of the baking sector, conveying and automation as well as experience in a variety of products, which all have specific requirements.
An industrial bakery needs to be confident that the industrial baking line it is buying will be reliable and that they will be able to bake their products with the expected efficiency and quality levels in the right production conditions.
How can you advise your clients on the best solutions for their products?
Gouet has a very customer-oriented approach. Three departments are in constant contact with clients. The commercial department is the initial contact, bringing the resources of the company at the disposal of the client. The pre-project department prepares the layout of the line together with the client. When the project is very specific, this work may need several months and several meetings to ensure that the clients objectives have been fully taken into consideration, that all alternatives have been examined and that the final project offers the best solution for the client. It is not rare for us to move our engineering and design office on site to work directly with customers and their partners.
Finally, the project department takes care of the client once the contract has been signed and coordinates all the operations from the production, the installation to the commissioning, in close cooperation with all teams and other suppliers.
To our knowledge, very few companies have such a project-oriented organisation. These three departments have all tripled their staff in the last 18 months.
What are your clients essentially looking for today?
Price, although important, is certainly not the first criteria when buying a new oven system. We usually advise our clients to choose the technology and the supplier, which they feel is best for their project first, and then discuss the price to try to reach their budget objective.
I believe that, when looking at buying a new oven, customers look for: the quality of the end product; reliability of the production line; ease of use (easy access, easy maintenance, automation of the settings); and accompaniment of the client?s development. Innovations are often achieved together with the client.
Environmental awareness is very popular today. Are your products designed with the environment in mind?
Baking is a very clean activity. Bread is essentially made with wheat-flour and water. The line can work with the cleanest energies available, whether gas or electricity.
Current innovations focus mainly on hygiene, ensuring that the line is easy to clean and safe for all operators.