Because the hive knows all: Doughnuts and the machines that make them

For the last 5 years, my family has been in charge of the doughnut booth at our parish festival.  Another couple established it and we took it over when they moved to another part of town.  It's a pretty popular booth with folks willing to wait over 90 minutes to get a bag of doughnuts on Friday and Saturday nights, but it is a ton of work.  We currently have a pair of mostly-manual Lil Orbits machines that run on 110v and lots of elbow grease.  If I have 8-10 people to man the booth and the weather conditions are just right, and I have two people that are really good on the fryers, I can burst to about 500 doughnuts an hour, but my average sustainable rate is about 350.  This means that I need to get there about 6 hours before the festival opens to start frying so that I can start the festival with around 2,000 doughnuts.  Invariably, by 2030 I am completely out of doughnuts and I spend the rest of the night in the hole (so to speak) where I am selling them about 3x faster than I can make them.  Usually around 2300-2315 I have to cut off sales and we spend the remainder of the evening trying to finish all the orders in the queue before the festival closes at midnight.  In addition to actively sending people away, I have to tell folks that they're limited to a single dozen and I have plenty of people that balk the queue rather than wait 15-90 minutes. 

That's my problem...  here's my solution:  We finally talking the steering committee into replacing the manual machines with something more automated.  I'm looking at a couple different solutions, but this is a world I don't know much about.  There are three goals that I need to achieve with the new system:  First, I need to be able to reduce the amount of labor required to make the booth go.  There are 4 official shifts during the festival, so that means currently have to get 40 people to volunteer in order to have my 10 people - 2 fryers, 1 order taker, 3 order fillers, 1 batter maker, 1 batter deliverer/supplies runner, 1 fryer attendant, and someone to oversee the whole operation.  I'd like to drop that so that I can have 3-4 people in the booth selling and prepping doughnuts, one person making the batter, and then I can deliver the batter, get supplies, and tend to the fryer.  The second goal is to be able to create enough doughnuts that I don't have to turn people away either directly or because there's a super-long wait.  Finally, I want a more consistent product - with manual fryers, they get cooked to different levels of done-ness each time and the oil temp varies wildly because the heating elements are only 110v.

So here's where I'm out of my element:  I can call up Lil Orbits and have them send me a brand-new SS2400 which should be able to do about 560/hour.  The other option seems to be to get a used Belshaw Adamatic Mark II Donut Robot with a mini-doughnut hopper which should be able to do about 950/hour.  What I don't like about Lil Orbits is the way they're trying to keep you hostage to buying their stuff and they actively sabotage the used market for their machines.  They've got this whole screed on their webpage talking about how people call them "all the time" just to find out that the used machine they bought is going to require thousands of dollars of parts to get working again.  They will give you a lifetime warranty but only to the original purchaser and only if you use their mix exclusively, Magnusson-Moss be damned!  That said, our manual fryers from Lil Orbits have clocked almost 76,000 doughnuts between the two of them and haven't needed any repairs, although the welds in the fryer tanks are looking a little grody.

On the other hand, Belshaw makes commercial baking equipment.  Apparently if you want to open up a bakery and make 40,000 doughnuts an hour, you order up a room-sized system from their catalog and get to it.  My assumption is that, being a commercial bakery equipment manufacturer, these are machines that are designed with a very long life expectancy and with repair in mind.  There's a local company that is listed as an authorized servicer which leads me to believe that parts availability isn't going to be a problem, although parts do seem pricey.  At least they're upfront about it, though.

Yes, I know that there are doughnut machines on ebay and amazon for about a grand.  Not interested.  Full stop.  I will be dragged out of my booth, tarred, feathered, and then drawn and quartered if my machine breaks down during the festival and I can't make any more doughnuts.

Anybody have any experience/knowledge about either the Lil Orbits or Belshaw Adamatic machines?  Are there any other commercial-grade machines that I should be looking at?  Anybody got one they're looking to unload for a good price!?

I know nothing about them, but now I want donuts. So thanks for that?

I would go with the 960 an hour, keep the ones you have as backup. Start the day with 4000 to 6000 made already, have more capacity to keep up... I would also consider calling local restaurant supply shops and asking their opinions.

Why do your customers want your doughnuts? Are they just buying for charity reasons and will buy as many as you can sell no matter what? Or, are they drawn to them because they're hand made and less uniform than stuff they'd get at a chain or grocery store?

Increasing volume and improving quality control sound great, but they have to still be the same doughnuts (or better) than the ones people are already used to. I'm not sure that it's going to happen here, but you can automate and refine the 'specialness' out of something.

Nothing to add except my dad was fascinated with donut machine ls and talked about this book sometimes.  
 

I see you're in Kentucky so I don't know if you've ever been to the Minnesota State Fair.

If you have, you'd know about Sweet Martha's Chocolate Chip Cookies; Absolute legend.

I realize that you've got an established customer base but baking is probably logistically easier than frying and the aroma of fresh cookies draws in customers.

I haven't been to the fair since 2019 due to COVID but the last time I was there, I bought two tubs...one to munch on and hand out to strangers, Uber drivers, people at the airport, etc. and one to fly home to California for my family.

560/hour is an incremental increase and I'd look for a larger improvement. As MTN said: go with the 960/hour option. This has a potential to shift your bottleneck to the order taking and fulfillment side of the booth, which I'd say is easier to manage than the production side. 

I'd also second MTN's direction on checking with local restaurant supply houses. Commercial equipment is commercial equipment. They need it to run and most of that stuff will do just that. I don't care for the Orbits business model you described but even if that didn't bother me, they still don't produce the volume you need to achieve. 

This sounds like a really neat project, and I'd ask you to update this thread as you work through this. I'm very curious about it and to see how increased production shifts the operation. 

https://www.facebook.com/commerce/products/4238258796287760/

Thanks for that rabbit hole.  I have no idea which one you want but it does sound like going bigger will pay off in the long run.

Do you have access to the 240 power supply?

In reply to wae :

Your in luck or maybe not. In Chicago October 6-8 2021 you can go to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Expo to maybe see donut making machines in action and to crawl around it and ask a billion questions. 

I have looked into the Lil Orbit unit many years ago as I was part of a community event planning group. From what I could gather, they are very reliable and robust. But yes the repair support is highly variable. Your steering committee may need some talking to about life cycle costs of either system. The Belshaw units may cost more over the life of the product but you get the value of a more stable repair and service function. The new automated Lil Orbits may be cheaper but the cost of failure would have to be factored in and you can do a good estimate based on losing one or two weekends of use and the sales affect there.

I am sure that either company or their sales-point partners would tell you about any program to pay for a standby machine to be available for you if one of your machines goes down. So instead of having purchased a machine you enter a service contract to have your machines replaced on demand for X amount per month. 

In my case, we chose not to buy but simply contract as needed for a mini donut maker. 

Always a fun time at Krispy Kreme on Broad Street in Richmond.  The kids really liked watching donuts get made, especially the sugar-glaze waterfall.  ( I kinda liked that too.)

Nothing to add except that I got to see the hot lazy river of mini donuts cooking at Mrs Bairds bakery in Fort Worth once.  Now, that was a serious machine.

Oh, and I got to watch it through a thermal imager as well.  Good times!

STM317 said:

Why do your customers want your doughnuts? Are they just buying for charity reasons and will buy as many as you can sell no matter what? Or, are they drawn to them because they're hand made and less uniform than stuff they'd get at a chain or grocery store?

Increasing volume and improving quality control sound great, but they have to still be the same doughnuts (or better) than the ones people are already used to. I'm not sure that it's going to happen here, but you can automate and refine the 'specialness' out of something.

I really, really hope there's a difference in taste between these freshly made donuts and random grocery store stuff.

I have nothing useful to add other than the "Belshaw Adamatic Mark II Donut Robot" has a most excellent product name.

Have you considered a business partner?

It sounds like you are considering a purchase of significant commercial equipment, and only intend to use it once a year. 

That means there are 51 weeks per year of excess available capacity.

This is a perfect scenario for a business to step in and partner with you. Mount the equipment in a trailer. One with glass side so people can watch. Let the business pay for the entire rig and claim a tax deduction for the donation of its use to the parish. Let them maintain it, and use it the rest of the year. 
 

Then focus your energy on the recipes, presentation, and everything that makes them wonderful. Share those recipes, etc with the business, and see if they will tithe off their gross receipts to the parish for the rest of the year.  Gain an additional residual. 

How many weekends a year do  use this ?

is it better to rent another smaller one to fill in the gap ?

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Donut food truck! Drive that thing around to various construction sites at lunch time and watch the money come in.

All I know about donuts is that when Tim Hortons stopped making them in store, I stopped buying them. berkeley their efficiencies.

NOHOME said:

All I know about donuts is that when Tim Hortons stopped making them in store, I stopped buying them. berkeley their efficiencies.

I've never had Timmy's, but I felt the same for Dunkin. They were decent when they were made in store. They're just slightly above grocery store quality now. 

NOHOME said:

All I know about donuts is that when Tim Hortons stopped making them in store, I stopped buying them. berkeley their efficiencies.

Man I was a sucker for an in store made Tim Hortons maple glazed donut or the Explosion du Fruits muffin. 

Now I only go there if in Toronto for their ready steeped tea. 

Are you trying to make money or make a lot of doughnuts?

Raise price each year till demand drops off to what you can make using current equipment? Same work, no additional investment of money or your time researching/purchasing new equipment, and you'll have increased profit.

In reply to NOT A TA :

That's an excellent point. 

NOT A TA said:

Are you trying to make money or make a lot of doughnuts?

Raise price each year till demand drops off to what you can make using current equipment? Same work, no additional investment of money or your time researching/purchasing new equipment, and you'll have increased profit.

But less donuts. Do not do the devil the favor of removing some joy from the world.

Just so there's no confusion, I LOVE doughnuts! You guys have no idea how many doughnuts I've eaten in my life. I really miss the taste of the old fashioned way they made them and pastries up through the 70's.

mtn said:

NOT A TA said:

Are you trying to make money or make a lot of doughnuts?

Raise price each year till demand drops off to what you can make using current equipment? Same work, no additional investment of money or your time researching/purchasing new equipment, and you'll have increased profit.

But less donuts. Do not do the devil the favor of removing some joy from the world.

Same quantity of doughnuts........ Not removing any, just no additional.

Y'all never disappoint!  Lot's of great stuff there, let me try to catch up:

- First off, I am a mere cog in the greater machine that is The Festival, so a lot of the decision-making that goes on is above my pay grade, as it were.  Like in any volunteer organization, indians with ideas get punished with chiefdom, and I don't have that kind of time at this point in my life.  So I need to be a little careful there!  All that to say that while I usually support out-of-the-box thinking and trying to reframe the question, in this case I am quite content to stay inside my box.

- The number of doughnuts that I can crank out over the period of the festival is somewhat less relevant to me.  If I could simply reduce the number of volunteers - and not have to spend all day on the Saturday of the festival pre-making doughnuts - while maintaining my output number, I'd consider that a win.  So one machine making 560 versus over 900 on another doesn't swing the needle too much.

- Are we making doughnuts or making money?  Honestly, we're more interested in making doughnuts.  I know that sounds weird, but at least around here those mini-doughnuts are part of the church festival culture and it's kind of expected that they're going to be there.  It's not exactly a loss-leader, but having the doughnut booth is just part of the schitck.  Being able to produce more product is less about bringing in more money and more about being able to let more people buy the doughnuts that they expected to be able to get. 

- Most festivals in the area have actually partnered with the Knights of Columbus.  The KofC has a giant trailer that is a mobile kitchen - these days, you'd call it a food truck, but they started doing it before that term was in vouge.  They'll roll up, provide the staff, the product, the whole thing, and basically pay a "rental fee" for the booth space.  I don't know the details (see point number one, above), but we've elected to not do that.  The decision was made about 8 or 9 years ago that the parish was going to own the equipment for this sort of thing (we also own all the gear for the fish fry, for example), and we've been increasing the amount of stuff we own over the years.

- We actually do use the doughnut gear a couple more times in the year.  The youth group and the PTO at the affiliated school have done fundraisers leveraging the fryers, and the turkey shoot and fish fry have talked about it as well.  One of the things that keeps us from using it more is that it's very labor-intensive.

- Yes, my doughnuts are worlds better than anything you'd buy in a store.  Automating that process wouldn't really change the character too much.  When we have to sprint to get closer to that 500/hour number with our existing machines, it's more likely that we get smaller doughnuts, that they don't get cooked just right, and that they will suck up a little too much oil.  And I hear about it. 

- Yes, I can get single-phase 240 power or propane.

- Trade show in Chicago, you say?  Now that's interesting and might be worth a trip.  I don't know that I can justify $19k for a brand new machine, but if it gives me a chance to at least ask some questions...

In reply to wae :

That's great. 

I'm curious about your need to reduce volunteers. As a volunteer organization, isn't it better (at some level) to encourage volunteerism?

Is this a matter of convenience?  Is it simply too hard to recruit and manage all those volunteers?  Is there a different way to manage them?

I spent many years building with volunteer labor, and there were a lot of things I had to change my thinking about. Productivity didn't always win.  We frequently chose  methods that increased manual labor and decreased automation just to encourage volunteerism. 
 

"Like in any volunteer organization, indians with ideas get punished with chiefdom..."

I love that. So true!!