A FAMILY-RUN engineering firm is helping bakers create perfect pies by developing an automatic glazing machine.

Addington Engineers, based in Brompton-on-Swale, Richmond, North Yorkshire, came up with a design for a portable pie glazing machine after demands from bakers for ways to improve efficiency.

The pies roll past the autoglaze machine, which are coated with the glazing and then go into the ovens.

Addington, established 40 years ago and employing four staff, specialises in designing and commissioning custombuilt machinery.

It has a reputation for creating labour-saving devices for the car and pharmaceutical industries, but the automatic glazing machine follows on from a number of pieglazing devices developed by company founder Eric Addington.

His grandson and present managing director, Craig Vine, said: “My grandfather was indirectly involved in the bakery industry and he came up with a range of pie-glazing equipment.

“He died in March last year, but we are taking on ideas he originally had.

“We found that there was a real need among food manufacturers to increase production line efficiency to meet the ever-increasing demands of snack food consumers.

“We are marketing them at the moment, have sold a few and are hoping large batch pie manufacturers take them up.”

Mr Vine said that bakeries could save a significant amount of money with the machines.

He said: “Doing it manually and with sprays, you always get a lot of waste. This machine applies the glazing when there is a pie there and doesn’t when there isn’t one, so companies can make quite significant savings.”

The stainless steel machine can glaze between 1,200 and 2,000 pies an hour, depending on production methods.

The company recently developed a device to remove airtight aluminium and plastic caps from bottles and phials while they were checked for contamination for GlaxoSmithKline’s plant in Barnard Castle.

It has also carried out work for motoring manufacturers BMW for its production line needs.

Mr Vine said: “Over the past 40 years Addington’s has provided cost-effective solutions and equipment across a range of manufacturing processes and production lines. We’ve answered the call from some of the best known names in industry. So we thought ‘why not the food industry?’ “Whether it’s pie makers or car makers, we can provide the answers to their problems.”