As a bakery expands, it becomes increasingly challenging to balance factors such as speed, efficiency, and consistency—typically, as you scale up, these are the first things to be compromised.

But that doesn’t have to be the case. One of the bottlenecks in a bakery is the dough rounding process. The process of rounding dough appears straightforward when examining individual pieces, but requires significant time, labor, and precision when producing thousands of bakery items.

There are dozens of tools that can help bakeries maintain quality and consistency as volumes increase, but dough rounders can easily make the most significant difference.

If you don’t need any more convincing, check out Empire’s selection of dough rounders here, from models designed for small bakeries to industrial-sized models for large-scale operations.

What Is a Dough Rounder?

The name says it all: a dough rounder takes your dough and portions and shapes them into smooth, uniform dough rounds.

It’s impossible to overemphasize just how much labor a dough rounder saves. For example, Empire’s KONIK Conical Dough Rounder can shape up to 2,400 pieces per hour, while the KONIK-2 model can do 4,000—numbers no human could ever match.

Even the most experienced baker could shape maybe 10 pieces a minute (that’s one every six seconds), and they’d only be able to shape 600 pieces of dough an hour.

Most bakeries pair a dough rounder with a dough divider, which portions and cuts individual pieces of dough to be uniform in size and weight. Some models, such as our SPA Automatic Dough Divider Rounder, combine dividing and rounding into a single machine.

Empire Dough Rounder

Dough Rounders Are Key For High-Volume Bakeries

When it comes to output, there’s no comparison between a baker hand-shaping dough and a dough rounder. These machines don’t just work a little faster—they enable bakeries to scale exponentially.

But dough rounders offer much more than speed. For bakeries looking to grow, the biggest benefits include:

  • Consistency: Being able to get your dough rounds in a uniform shape and weight is a game-changer. Customers will receive the same product each time, and product waste will be limited, saving not only time but money as well. 
  • Labor: Without the need to dedicate one (or more) bakers to shaping dough, you can free up people to work on other parts of the business, like developing new recipes or working with customers. Dough shaping is also repetitive and taxing, which can cause fatigue and stress injuries: a dough rounder prevents those.  
  • Quality: Any baker will tell you that overworking a dough can compromise its gluten structure. Empire Dough Rounders are gentle with handling the dough in order not to degass the dough or compromise its structure in any way.

All these factors matter when scaling up a business or supporting high volume: you can’t remain a high-volume operation if your product is inconsistent or labor time is being consumed by a specific task in the production line, bringing everything else to a halt.

What To Consider When Buying a Dough Rounder

Planning to buy a dough rounder? It’s essential to consider a few factors:

  • Capacity: What kind of output do you need to support future growth? Dough Rounders come in a variety of models based on how many pieces it can produce in one pass. 
  • ROI: How much more product do you need to sell to support the investment in a new piece of machinery? It’s essential to perform this math because the ROI is high; however, you need to have a plan in place to support increased growth, such as scaling up your retail capacities or pursuing more wholesale clients.
  • Dough hydration: Some models are designed to work with higher hydration doughs; make sure to check the machine’s specifications to see what types of doughs it can handle.
  • Maintenance and support: What happens if a part breaks or you need help troubleshooting an issue? Check to see what kind of customer service options are available and how easy it is to order or have spare parts on hand.
  • Double-duty machines: As we mentioned above, rounders are usually paired with dough dividers. If you don't have the space for both, Empire offers machines that can perform both tasks, available in semi-automatic, three-quarters automatic, and fully automatic models.

Why a Dough Rounder Is a Must-Have

A rounder is one of the most essential tools for bakeries aiming to scale and produce consistently at large volumes. Shaping dough is such a labor-intensive practice that creates a bottleneck in bakeries—one that a dough rounder can eliminate overnight.

If you're ready to learn more, check out Empire's catalog of dough rounders and combined dough dividers/moulders now.