Crown Bakeries’ Pleasant Prairie investment sharpens quality, flexibility

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Crown Bakeries’ Pleasant Prairie investment sharpens quality, flexibility

27 Jun 2025

Joanie Spencer

Since 2008, Joanie Spencer has covered the retail and wholesale sides of the baking industry.
Serving associations such as the American Society of Baking (ASB) and BEMA, Joanie is also in demand as an industry presenter on bakery operations and trends. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from Rockhurst University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

When she’s not running or playing soccer, Joanie spends her time with her husband and 11-year-old son.

NASHVILLE, TN — Although the Pleasant Prairie plant was built with space for a fourth line, Nashville, TN-based Crown Bakeries’ current need for speed and flexibility required a larger footprint for the bun production.

“We will sacrifice a fair bit of square footage to have that flexibility,” said Jennifer Shaw, director of marketing and communications for Crown Bakeries. “But that’s the big differentiator for Crown: We don’t compromise on quality or flexibility, especially when different customers — regardless of the channel — need it to meet their specific needs.”

That said, quality pertains to the people as well as the products.

“You’ve got to have highly qualified people on your team,” said Doug Bame, president of Crown Bakeries. “You can buy the best equipment, but to be a great manufacturer, you need a quality team that works well together. That applies to everything, including leadership, training, culture, working relationships — everything.”

Over the past four years — as the Crown Bakeries workforce has grown to nearly 2,000 — Arbor Investments has invested more than $140 million across the board, including operational installations throughout the network and building upgrades that support the “One Crown” initiative.

The goal is for all nine bakeries to reflect the company’s brand strategy while also focusing on the workforce.

“It’s part of Cordia’s foundation,” said Yianny Caparos, CEO of Crown Bakeries. “Everything we do is driven by the people. We want them to know they’re a part of the growth, so it’s important to offer something people see as a career, not just a job.”

It all folds into Crown’s mission statement: “Create opportunities, make a difference and impact lives.”

“We’ve not only focused on the look and feel coming together for all the facilities, but we also focused on amenity spaces such as lunchrooms and locker rooms,” Bame said. “We want to make coming to work every day an enjoyable experience and ensure everyone feels they’re part of the same thing. We’ve made a concerted effort to prioritize that, especially for plants that came into the network through acquisition.”

An investment deep dive

Operationally, Pleasant Prairie, WI’s capital investments — around $32 million for building updates and additional lines — ultimately have to support a strong execution within its core capabilities.

“We always make sure it comes back to the core,” said George Caparos, Crown Bakeries’ chief development officer. “We have to focus on that execution of thaw-and-serve croissants, frozen dough croissants and freezer-to-oven croissants; the same goes for buns, as well.”

A critical component of that is having — and maintaining — close business relationships with vendors. It’s a significant part of what makes life easier for the operation, especially come commission time.

“With the second croissant line, we knew exactly what we wanted,” Yianny explained. “It was all about capturing the business this facility had been serving. We knew the vendors we trusted and the people we could work with, who understand our needs, respond promptly and treat us essentially like family.”

The croissant makeup lines, both built by Rademaker, mirror each other, save for any technology updates since the original installation.

Line 1 primarily runs butter-based laminated dough for QSR customers, while Line 2 focuses on margarine-based products that work well for items like microwavable sandwiches. The amount of layering, laminating and sheeting all depend on the specific customer and product type, and the Rademaker systems allow that flexibility.

For high-speed croissant production, consistency has no room for compromise. That’s why the Crown team relied on a trusted relationship when investing in a new direct-fire tunnel oven from The Henry Group for the second line.

“The entire infrastructure of this facility was built with the intention of filling it up.” — Scott Shelley | COO | Crown Bakeries

“The first oven Yianny ever installed was from The Henry Group,” Shelley said. “We’ve all come a long way since then, but the overall reliability and consistency of this oven is unlike any other I’ve used.”

It was a true full-circle moment.

“We didn’t pursue anyone except for The Henry Group for the new oven,” Yianny said. “We came back to them because of the equipment’s durability and reliability and the team’s responsiveness.”

Cooling and freezing on both lines represent technology that enables speed, efficiency and flexibility. Still working like a charm since the bakery opened, the original Tecnopool cooling tower on Line 1 — discovered at the 2016 International Baking Industry Exposition — was Yianny’s must-have when the first operation began.

Meanwhile on Line 2, a hybrid cooling-freezing spiral from Coastline enables flexibility without changing lines.

“We first installed a Coastline spiral at our Norcross [Georgia] plant in early 2020,” said Scott Shelley, Crown Bakeries’ COO. “When we built the croissant line in Nashville, we installed one there, as well. It’s robust from a construction standpoint, and it’s very sanitary. It’s a great solution for us to supply customers such as sandwich makers with commissaries.”

The final touch on Line 2 is a Pattyn packaging system, designed to streamline controls for bulk case packing. The system bags, fills, shakes and seals each case quickly and efficiently.

“It runs incredibly fast, but it’s also very smooth,” Shelley said. “I think Yianny says it best: ‘We’re running so fast, yet it’s all very calm.’”

Future forecasting

With an additional 10,000 square feet of space on the building’s second floor, Crown has an opportunity to extend its office space or add R&D and product demo capabilities.

For now, the focus is on making those croissants and commissioning the bun line.

“The entire infrastructure of this facility was built with the intention of filling it up,” Shelley said. “When we came in, we knew we had great bones in this building. And now, the bun line is going to fulfill that original vision. You could say it all comes back to leadership at Crown and Arbor. There’s a total expectation to be the best.”

Sometime in the future, growth might require expansion for additional freezer space. That’s a long way off, but for a company always planning ahead, one just never knows. Building codes for the Pleasant Prairie facility dictate that it can only be as wide as it is tall … for a team that’s already come full circle, perhaps there’s nowhere to go but up.

This story has been adapted from the April | Q2 2025 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.

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