News –

NORD Serves Up Sweet Energy and Cost Savings for Industrial Bakeries

NORD offers specialized drive technology for the Bakery Industry to maximize uptime, adhere to strict hygiene rules, and significantly reduce TCO.

WAUNAKEE, Wis., 2026-06-30

The Bakery Industry combines traditional culinary expertise with the high-throughput demands of modern automation, requiring drive systems in these applications to offer precise control and meet rigorous hygiene standards for food safety. NORD DRIVESYSTEMS, global leader in drive technology, offers robust, highly configurable drive solutions designed to optimize efficiency, ensure hygiene, and reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for automated bakery systems. From industrial-scale mixing and portioning to baking, cooling, and packaging, NORD’s modular product portfolio delivers precise, reliable performance across every stage of production.

Demanding environments are common in the Bakery Industry, including extreme temperatures, high pressure jet cleaning, and various hazardous areas including those that use alcoholic liquids and chemicals during cleaning processes. NORD’s robust, specialized solutions stand up to these environments and have proven themselves in baking applications around the world. Numerous options are available to meet the Bakery Industry’s needs such as special lubricants for low and high temperatures, thermal protection against overheating, Protection Class IP66 or IP69K, stainless steel shafts and accessories, metal fan blades, fanless designs, and explosion-protected motors for hazardous areas.

Smooth Surface Gear Motors for Wash-Down Protection

NORD offers a range of smooth surface drives made from high-strength, naturally corrosion resistant aluminum alloy designed for easy cleaning in wash-down environments. The housings have no external hard edges or crevices, ensuring particles and liquids can drain off in any installation position and there are no areas where corrosive liquids can remain. Smooth surface gear unit designs include NORDBLOC.1® helical inline gear units, UNICASE™ parallel shaft gear units, NORDBLOC.1 helical bevel gear units, and UNIVERSAL SMI worm gear units. All gear units are available with NEMA/IEC adapters or direct mounting and feature precise seals that prevent contaminants from entering the housing. NORD’s smooth surface motors include both IE3 asynchronous and IE5+ synchronous versions, both of which do not include cooling fins or fans, preventing contaminant accumulation and germ spread via air flow. Additional motor protection options include potted terminal boxes, condensation drain holes, space heaters, and moisture resistant varnished dipped windings.

High Efficiency with Reduced TCO

Continuous-running applications like mixers, proofing conveyors, and tunnel ovens represent a significant portion of energy consumption and operating costs. NORD’s IE5+ permanent magnet synchronous motors offer exceptionally high efficiency in a compact design available as ventilated (TEFC) and non-ventilated (TENV) versions. They deliver constant torque over a wide speed range, making them ideal for handling varying dough viscosities in mixing machinery and significantly increasing performance, lowering energy costs, and reducing system variants. When supplied as part of a complete drive solution, IP69K surface treatment is available for added environmental protection.

Robust, Reliable Performance with NORD Gear Units

Thanks to their Plug-and-Play connections and modular structure, NORD drive units are incredibly easy to install, service, and maintain. They are engineered to minimize downtimes, reduce parts inventory, and increase overall plant availability. UNICASE helical bevel gear units are engineered from a robust, cast-iron housing that provides high axial and radial load capacity, minimum backlash, and efficient performance ideal for mixing, kneading, and conveying systems. A variety of shaft options, mounting options, and bearing concepts that support heavy loads ensure application-specific designs.

For high-capacity industrial dough mixers requiring significant force, NORD’s MAXXDRIVE® XC parallel industrial gear units deliver high output torques up to 2,495,900 lb-in. Built from single-piece UNICASE housing, these robust gear units ensure high axial and radial load capabilities, quiet operation, and a long service life under severe mixing conditions.

UNICASE worm gear units provide an even balance between performance and low operating costs in a compact, one-piece housing design ideal for packaging processes. Their precise operation results in high reliability while a self-locking design eliminates the need for an additional brake depending on the system. Like NORD’s other gear units, they also offer quiet operation, a long service life, and easy maintenance.

Intelligent Control with Electronic Control Products

Electronic control products deliver accuracy, reliability, and safety through precise positioning, speed control, and functional safety. NORD’s variable frequency drives feature a variety of programmable options including reverse operation to prevent backups, drive synchronization to accurately match the position and speeds of equipment used during weighing, filling, covering, and more processes, Safe Torque Off (STO), and torque monitoring to ensure appropriate levels of force are used during each stage of processing. Their decentralized drives include the NORDAC FLEX, NORD’S most flexible VFD with scalable functionality, and NORDAC ON/ON+ developed to meet the specialized demands of horizontal conveyor technology. For control cabinet operation, NORD offers the NORDAC PRO SK 500P series with scalable functionality and performance up to 200.0 hp.

Whether upgrading existing baking lines or designing new automated processing facilities, NORD's specialized food and beverage solutions help bakeries maximize uptime, adhere to strict hygiene regulations, and significantly lower the Total Cost of Ownership.

For more information about NORD’s Bakery Industry solutions, visit www.nord.com.