About

Cafenucci Foods Inc. is an Ontario-based food manufacturing company operating the St. Pio Bakery brand since July 2002. The company produces artisan bread, specialty dip-bread products, pastries, and complementary baked goods designed for high-volume retail distribution.  Cafenucci’s products are targeted to major retail and wholesale markets, including big-box retailers such as Costco, as well as grocery distribution networks and foodservice channels.

Project

As demand for products increases, Cafenucci is advancing its automation capabilities to improve product consistency, reduce waste, and strengthen its supply reliability for large retail contracts.  With the support of the Development and Commercialization program, Cafenucci will develop an AI-enabled quality-control system that combines machine vision and robotics to inspect dip bread products in real time on a conveyor line.  The company will be working with the MMRI TDS to provide a controlled testing environment to evaluate machine-vision accuracy and optimize illumination to support the development of the quality control system.

Impact & Outcomes

This project will deliver a validated, production-ready automated quality-control system for dip-bread manufacturing, integrating machine vision, artificial intelligence, and robotic sorting.  Deployment of this system across multiple automated lines will lead to a 25-40% reduction in quality control-related waste and a 20-30% reduction in manual inspection labour.  These saving will help reduce operating costs, increase revenue and lead to creation of 3-5 new full-time rolls at the company.