Pre-Oven Printing on Dough: More Quality, Fewer Constraints In-Line

Context: integrating printing into the biscuit industry

In 2025, a Spanish multinational asked us to test the possibility of printing directly onto raw dough, before baking, rather than downstream of the oven. The goal: to integrate printing in-line, overcoming the typical limitations of post-oven (high temperatures, dust, and areas not designed for digital) while increasing process stability.

Pre-oven printing: the technical challenge

The key questions were twofold:

1. Does the color withstand the oven? (over 250 °C in industrial conditions)

2. Does the mark remain sharp on porous and non-porous dough without spreading before fixing?

   
   

It was also necessary to validate the four-color process (CMYK) to ensure consistent rendering across all channels.

The industrial test (june 2025)

In June 2025, we carried out an industrial trial in CMYK on raw dough, directly in-line with a 30-meter industrial oven. Production continued for four hours—around half a shift—with constant sampling from start to finish on both porous and non-porous substrates.

The results confirmed printing stability. No migration or spreading occurred before fixing: the liquid’s surface tension kept the mark intact up to oven entry. During baking, the water evaporated quickly, fixing the color on the surface. This produced a more vivid chromatic output than post-oven, especially on porous dough where color normally tends to penetrate. Final results were bright and easy to read.

Why pre-oven is a game-changer

The dough area offers constant and controlled conditions: liquids maintain stable viscosity and jetting, ensuring repeatable print quality. Uniform dough thickness, ensured by calendering or lamination, keeps the printhead-to-product distance optimal (≈3 mm).

Another advantage is the ability to work on multiple lanes simultaneously, avoiding the bottlenecks typical of post-oven, where products converge into a single lane at very high speeds—requiring much more expensive machinery.

Pre-oven printing also means operating in a cleaner environment, free from contaminants such as dust, steam, or condensation, which often compromise decoration quality downstream of baking.

The Xlogic Solution

Our solution builds on the natural integration of proven food-printing technology with food-grade liquids designed to withstand the harshest conditions. The printer maintains the same throughput as industrial lines, and its position can be adapted as required: pre- or post-oven.

Our proprietary liquids, developed to our specifications and produced in Italy, are optimized to maintain sharpness and brilliance even in pre-oven conditions.Validation was completed in real industrial environments, making the technology fully production-ready—the client only needs to run its internal quality checks.

What It Means for Producers

This is not just an aesthetic improvement, but a step forward in line organization and process stability.

Operational and quality advantages:

• Flexibility to choose pre- or post-oven according to plant setup and goals

• Greater vividness and readability on porous substrates

• Stable process (temperature/humidity/thickness under control) → less variability, fewer rejects

• In-line integration without slowing production; no downtime for image changes (digital = instant switch)

  
  

Impact and Outlook

Pre-oven printing on dough expands the scope of industrial food decoration: more flexibility in integration, more process control, more visual quality.

With Xlogic printers and proprietary food-grade liquids, producers can decide whether to print before or after baking—without compromise on safety or performance.