Clif Bar & Company’s Indianapolis facility puts safety first

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Clif Bar & Company’s Indianapolis facility puts safety first

30 Jan 2021

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.

Not much can get in the way of bar production at Clif Bar Baking Company of Indianapolis, one of two self-manufacturing sites for Clif Bar & Company. In fact, when the building underwent a massive overhaul in 2020, doubling the building space and completely transforming the office space around the plant, the operation still broke all production records.

But for Clif, it’s more than just a numbers game. Safety is a primary concern, and it starts at the front door.

Because the plant runs shifts 24/7, it was important that the building be safe for employees who may be coming or going at any given hour. So management at the bakery had a two-fold challenge: keep the building secure while still making visitors feel welcome.

In a typical manufacturing space, a secure environment often ends up looking like a sterile space, but that’s not the Clif Bar way.

“There was a lot of discussion about having a wide-open and inviting space but also having security,” said Dave Tintelnot, general manager at Clif Bar Baking Company of Indianapolis.

The team accomplished that with an open space outside the front door designed with wood accents, bike racks and benches, along with features such as rotating glass doors that require badge scans for entry.

“There was a lot of discussion about having a wide-open and inviting space but also having security,” said Dave Tintelnot, general manager at Clif Bar Baking Company of Indianapolis.

“We still have security, but it’s done in a beautiful way so it’s not so noticeable,” Tintelnot said. “You’re not hit with security right away; you’re hit with an inviting space before you come into the secured areas. It’s a beautiful reception space.”

It was also important for Clif to transform the parking lot and driveway to enhance security for second- and third-shift workers walking to and from their cars or even being dropped off or picked up at the front door. Added lighting and security cameras make the space — which is shared with the adjacent ConAgra facility — free from incidents.

Berms were installed along the main road, and traffic was separated so that delivery trucks and worker or visitor vehicles use separate driveway entrances. This directs the semis and rigs into a totally separate area from the cars.

Inside the manufacturing plant, a land-locked space that was previously a Clif co-manufacturing site, the space is divided over two stories: processing on the first floor and packaging on the second. While that creates some very specific logistical challenges in getting the bars through the lines, it also created some serendipity during the pandemic when social distancing was a key to remaining operational.

“We had a lot of separation already even though it was a very tight space,” Tintelnot said. The way the bakery had to fit in the lines naturally created a 6-ft distance between line workers on the second floor. And in places where that distance can’t be achieved the rooms were redesigned or barriers put in place.

As with anything in a Clif Bar operation, that was good, but good enough just isn’t good enough for Clif. Early on, Tintelnot spearheaded a COVID-19 task force to develop strict safety protocols to keep employees and vendors safe during the pandemic.

“In the beginning, I probably spent 110% of my time focused on COVID,” Tintelnot said. “Keeping everyone safe was my No. 1 priority.”

The response team still meets every week because, even after a year, regulations, recommendations and protocols can still change on a dime. And though there was no playbook in the early days of the pandemic, the wide-open spaces of the renovated building were conducive to the situation and easily lent themselves to social distancing.

Clif is known for high standards of food- and people-safety protocols, so on many levels, the bakery is about as safe a place as a person could be.

To learn more about Clif Bar’s safety protocols in Indianapolis and how the bakery achieved two major equipment installations during the pandemic, check out the inaugural issue of Commercial Baking.

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