Automation keeps the bread category afloat

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Automation keeps the bread category afloat

17 Apr 2023

Annie Hollon

Annie Hollon is a journalist, copywriter and social media strategist from the Dallas, Texas area. She found a love for magazine writing during her time at the University of Alabama where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in public relations and English. Beyond writing, you can find her expanding her library, attempting to teach herself the guitar and trying new hobbies.

KANSAS CITY, MO — The effect of inflation on key ingredient costs continues to impact bread manufacturers and their consumers. To navigate uncertainty, bakeries are learning to work with suppliers to keep costs and shortages at bay.

At Thomasville, GA-based Flowers Foods, producer of notable brands including Nature’s Own, Dave’s Killer Bread and Wonder, the focus has been on balancing consumer needs with manufacturing capabilities. According to Tom Winter, the company’s chief supply chain officer, Flowers’ bakeries have maintained food quality, safety and regulatory compliance as top priorities despite rising costs.

“As high inflation continues to impact production costs and consumer decision-making, we are laser-focused on providing reliable customer service — meeting orders on time and keeping shelves stocked — and minimizing costs,” Winter said. “This means we must operate as efficiently as possible.”

St. Louis-based Companion Baking found itself less impacted by the supply chain because of its longstanding supplier partnerships, Josh Allen, Companion’s founder, shared.

“We don’t change vendors regularly, and it’s not always about the best price,” he said. “It’s about the relationship, the service, the fill rate, and folks taking care of us — and us taking care of them.”

Allen noted that those relationships add shelf life and value to its operations. Companion has worked with ADM Milling for 20 years and partners with AB Mauri, who’s just 20 minutes away.

“Those relationships have value, and that consistency has value,” he said. “If we’re not constantly beating people up about price and service, and if we recognize that mistakes are mistakes and work through them together, then when things get challenging, we get closer to the front of the line on product availability.”

Supply chain challenges related to ingredients are not currently a pressure point for Companion. That is placed on increased costs across the board.

“We’ve been around for 30 years, so we’ve seen all kinds of different things,” Allen said. “What we’ve never seen before is plastic for packaging escalating at the rate it is, while at the same time flour and labor costs are escalating. We’ve never had that trifecta, where every single line item that goes into gross margin is getting hit at once.”

Companion has yet to raise its prices, but rising ingredient costs are a concern. Even though cost pressure is in other areas such as plastic bags and corrugated boxes, there’s greater concern about the hands needed for production.

Technology such as an automated storage and retrieval system has helped La Crosse, WI-based Kwik Trip reduce the number of coworkers needed, noted Eric Fonstad, bread and bun plant director.

“The automation has kept us from needing 20 to 30 people every year to where we’re only hiring a few coworkers every year,” he said. “It has helped us tremendously; without it, we would be in trouble.”

Kwik Trip has set its sights on maxing out on automation. Its new facility, which opened in 2018, was built for growth, with automation that supports expansion. By automating some processes, the facility increased bread production from 150 to 225 loaves per minute and doubled bun production from 800 to 1,600 buns per minute.

To supply its hundreds of c-stores, Kwik Trip uses vertical integration for quality and price control. Growing concern over staffing resources realized a highly automated bakery operation for its 11 bread and 11 bun SKUs for everything from raw ingredient scaling and mixing to packaging and order pulling.

A Zeppelin ingredient handling system scales approximately 95% of everything manufactured at Kwik Trip and manages the ingredient transfer from storage bins to mixers. The company also invested in several mixers, including three 2,000-lb. AMF Bakery Systems mixers for bread and a continuous mixer from Reading Bakery Systems (RBS) for buns. The RBS continuous mixer supports plans for expansion and increased productivity.

AMF proofers, ovens and coolers also helped automate the plant floor.

“When you look at the proofing and bake, it’s all conveyorized,” Fonstad said. “There’s no interaction that has to be handled by a co-worker; it’s all handed off from one unit to the next.”

Even with high automation, Kwik Trip trains co-workers to the fullest capacity by instilling knowledge and confidence, which ensures production flows.

In St. Louis, Companion is investing in automation to improve efficiency and address labor challenges, Allen shared.

“We’ve worked with Bettendorf-Stanford and have invested in their bag packing equipment in the past 24 months,” he said. “We purchased case erecting equipment and a robotic palletizer in the past 12 months, which we really needed to keep the process moving. We’ve also worked with Sottoriva for a new bun line.”

This story has been adapted from the February | Q1 2023 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition.

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