Baking & Snack - June 2009 - 37

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5-grain S-shap
S-shaped cracker with good
particulate defi
de nition, rivaling similar offerings in the marketplace.
Grains include oat, wheat, rice, corn
and triticale and will be available
in Sea Salt, Sweet Chili and White
Cheddar varieties to start.
Last year, Baptista's commissioned
a third low-pressure extrusion line in
the 140,000-sq-ft plant, adding 50%
capacity to its pretzel crisp output
and bringing the total number of
production lines to six - four extrusion and two sheeting.
Packaging is another area that has
seen substantial improvement and
expansion in the past two years. Not
only did the company add a new series of baggers but also an additional
product handling and diverter system that provides the flexibility to
run virtually any product on any
packaging line - allowing pillow
pouches; bag-in-box and auto case
packing; gusseted pouches; reclosable zipper bags; bulk packaging; and
new 4-wall-gusseted or quad-seal
bags. "Overall, we have what we call
'overpull' capacity in packaging -
more packaging capacity than baking capacity. That enables high levels
of flexibility," Mr. Susko noted.
"There was no way to convert an
existing vertical f/f/s bagger to quadseal," Mr. Howe noted. "Although the
bag still comes off a single roll stock
of film as it feeds over a squared for-

ᮣ Potato crisp agglomerate enters the
differential sheeting rollers from
the oscillating feed conveyor.

mer, the four corners are pinched,
and the fin seal is secured. This provides each bag structure as a standup pouch that has excellent merchandising capability."
CLOSING IN. Because of growth and
increases in customers and SKUs,
Baptista's recently implemented a
computerized bar-coded tracking
system for raw material delivery,
inventory, finished goods and all
processes in between. "It provides
traceability, continuous inventory
control and process monitoring as
far as yields and other critical quality
controls," Mr. Susko noted.
With the internal expansion, the
plant lost close to 80% of in-house
storage for finished products and is
now using an outside storage facility.
"We can keep about a day and a half
of product in-house,
but just about everything is transported
to the warehouse and
shipped from there,"
Mr. Howe said.
Currently the plant
is running at about
60% utilization, according to Mr. Howe,
compared with last year
when the plant was well
ᮤ New preblend and premix
towers were added to enable whole- and multigrain
products.

BAKING & SNACK / June 2009

over 90%. "We now have the ability to
grow not only in volume but in the
different types of products as well," he
said. "Our estimate is that we will be
back to 80% within a few years, and
at that point we will make a decision
about how or where to expand - we
have space for one more processing
line within the existing plant and/or
adding oven zones to the three existing extrusion lines. One new zone to
each line would add 33% more capacity per line thus equalling the output
of an additional line without taking
up any new space."
Mr. Howe noted other possibilities
such as physically expanding the building on two sides as the plant is situated
on 26 acres, or it might look at acquiring a second facility somewhere else.
R&D SHIFT. Although it is said the
lifeblood of new business is product
development, there are many forms,
according to Mr. Huber. "I think we
have seen an interesting shift in the
past year," he said. "Last year, nearly
two-thirds of projects were related
to quality improvement or cost reduction. The other third was what
we considered true product development. This year, almost all projects stem from line extensions or
exploratory-type items, and many of
them are healthy and nutritionally
enhanced ideas. We have even been
approached to look into adding prebiotic ingredients."
Overall trends, according to Mr.

Baking & Snack - June 2009

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