Your bakery is booming — now it's time to invest in the right bakery equipment to keep up with demand.

Much of a bakery's success depends on maximizing volume and efficiency (and, of course, selling great products). Having the right baking machines beyond your typical ovens and mixers can take any bakery from a quaint operation to one that produces exponentially more pastries, breads, and baked goods.

Whether you're aiming to serve more customers or explore growth opportunities like expansion or wholesaling, investing in bakery equipment is essential to support new avenues of development.

However, not every piece of baking equipment is made equal. Sorting through all the different types of equipment for bakeries can be confusing: some bakery equipment might seem practical but fail to deliver real results.

Here's a quick list of baking machines we think you'll need, with more in-depth breakdowns of how they'll impact growth and sales below:

You may already have a line out the door at your bakery — these baking machines will help you move the line quickly and welcome new customers daily, give you the tools to explore wholesaling options, or help expand your brand's footprint far beyond the bakery walls.

LFKR Stone Hearth Deck Oven

#1: LFKR Stone Hearth Deck Oven

You likely have an oven as part of your bakery equipment toolkit, but how big is your oven? How easy is it to use?

Empire Bakery Equipment's LFKR Stone Hearth Deck Oven can increase capacity by 3-4 times that of conventional bakery ovens. In terms of baking machines, the oven you choose is likely the most significant decision you can make. This model can bake up to 400 loaves of bread at a time and is smaller than most ovens with the same capacity.

Stone hearth ovens have decks that can be baked onto directly, eliminating a different piece of baking equipment: sheet trays. Instead of cycling through (and washing) hundreds of sheet trays, you can load right onto the stone, saving time.

In terms of equipment for bakers, the LFKR model is easy to use, comes with multiple options (such as manual, semi-automatic, and fully automated loading decks), and features a front-loading design, making it easy to install.

🔥 Read more about the LFKR Stone Hearth Deck Oven here

#2: Stationary Bowl Spiral Mixer

Kneading dough takes time, and in terms of reducing labor, there's no piece of bakery equipment quite as efficient as a stationary bowl spiral mixer.

Stationary mixers are versatile pieces of equipment. Spiral mixers are designed to mix large volumes of dough consistently, often two to four times the amount that a standard planetary mixer can handle. Spiral mixers mimic hand-kneading without the warmth that comes off a person's hand, keeping doughs cooler during mixing.

For a growing bakery, a stationary spiral mixer is an essential piece of bakery equipment. They can deliver higher capacity, a better developed dough, and consistent quality — without overworking your team or equipment.

🍞 Read more about our line of stationary bowl spiral mixers here

#3: Dough Divider

A dough divider is an essential piece of equipment for bakeries, especially ones staking their reputations on consistency, which is necessary for growth. No one wants to be the bakery known for inconsistent batches and wildly different products coming out of their kitchen.

Dividing dough by hand is exhausting and time-consuming — a dough divider is an essential baking machine that cuts hours of labor down to minutes. Dough dividers are available in various configurations, depending on the desired shape. In a way, dough dividers are a deceptively efficient piece of bakery equipment: their function seems straightforward, but they reduce workloads and improve output exponentially.  

For a growing bakery, a dough divider is more than a time-saver — it's a that makes scaling up and growth possible. A dough divider enhances quality, efficiency, and profitability as a bakery ramps up production.

🍩 Read more about our line of dough dividers here

#4: Cookie Depositor

How many trays of cookies could you prepare in a day? An hour? How long before your hand cramps up? What would you do with the extra time if you weren't prepping trays of cookies?

A cookie depositor is a game-changing piece of baking equipment. For a growing bakery, a cookie depositor transforms cookie production from a manual, time-intensive process into a fast, consistent, and scalable operation. Even our most compact models can prep 120 trays of cookies per hour — imagine trying to do that by hand.

Most models have a variety of nozzles and capacity for hundreds of recipes, meaning a cookie depositor isn't just a one-trick pony of baking equipment: it can handle a wide range of items from macarons to biscuits to intricately shaped cookies to classics like chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin.

Cookie depositors live in the same family of baking machines as filling machines that top cream and frosting or inject jams and jellies into baked goods. All are designed to eliminate time-consuming and arduous processes when done by hand, allowing bakery owners to grow and focus on their business.

🍪 Read more about our cookie depositors here

#5: Reversible Dough Sheeter

A reversible dough sheeter elevates the capabilities of bakeries working with laminated or delicate doughs, such as croissants, puff pastry, or pie crusts.

A dough sheeter is a bakery machine that ensures dough is rolled out and cut precisely, rather than having to guess when rolling out and cutting manually. Consistent thickness is key for even baking, uniform rise, flakiness, and pastry aesthetics (giving the folks a reason to post your baked goods on social media!).

Two-way rolling decreases handling, which is crucial for laminated doughs that rely on keeping butter cool to ensure the dough rises properly in the oven. Like the spiral mixer, a reversible dough sheeter eliminates hours of labor and reduces the risk of workplace-related injuries and fatigue.  

🥐 Learn more about our reversible dough sheeters here

How The Right Kind of Bakery Equipment Can Help You Grow
If you feel your bakery is on the cusp of turning the page, of finally starting to grow and gaining momentum, make sure you have the right bakery equipment to propel that growth forward. At Empire, we have the right baking tools for you, no matter what your growing bakery needs may be.