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◀ The 180° turn and long
parallel belts lengthen
automatically, trombone
fashion, to accumulate
products when necessary.
"This practice creates links between
facilities, among the
maintenance,
engineering and operations
staff, to exchange ideas,
to solve problems," Mr.
Gingras added.
With five operations to manage, the company installed videoconferencing capability. "It's a great way to get
everyone together for meetings and brainstorming,"
Jean-Sébastien Leclerc said.
AUTOMATED, FLEXIBLE. For the most part, Allen-Bradley
PLCs equipped with PanelView terminals run the production, packaging and warehousing systems, which are also
covered by a SAP system. The plant also uses many Loma
and Safeline metal detection systems on all lines.
"What we try to achieve is a highly automated facility,
so we have absolute control over quality," Mr. Lemoine
said. "We use our people not to work hard but to work
smart. They don't have to handle the product; they control
the equipment instead."
This level of automation is found throughout the Leclerc
plants. "Denis bought our first robot in the late 1970s, and
we were the first in North America to operate an automated
warehouse," Jean-Sébastien Leclerc observed.
Such automation helped recruit Mr. Gingras to Leclerc. "I
previously worked in the high-tech field, and I had 'heard'
things about bakeries," he said. He was not sure he was ready
for the food industry but changed his mind quickly when he
interviewed at Leclerc eight years ago. "What I saw instead
was a tremendous level of technology."
The ingredient system installed at Kingsport includes a
110,000-lb flour silo, two liquid silos each capable of holding
two loads of 90,000 lb of glucose and maltose. Other raw materials come in totes or small tanks and are pumped or pneumatically conveyed to usage points. Four interior silos contain granola cereal and puffed rice, two for each intermediate
material. Automated Ingredient Systems Ltd.
and Semco made the overhead ingredient
supply hoppers above various mixers.
The plant has an on-site quality assurance lab, although the more complicated
microbiology tests are sent to Quebec.
"One centralized lab handles all the
plants on such matters," Denis Leclerc
said. "All other tests are done locally."

BAKING & SNACK / August 2010

DESIGN TARGETS. Plant margins depend on running
at optimum speeds with minimum waste. That need
shaped the choice of technology for Kingsport. "As a
company, we started with small-capacity granola lines,"
Mr. Gingras explained. "Then we went to huge lines, 36to 40-in. wide at other plants, but we learned that such
a big line was really too big to switchover easily. It was
tough to manage production schedules.
"The idea here was to go smaller but to run the line at a
speed to do full shifts of production without changeovers,"
he said. "In the future, we will continue to use the small,
narrower lines and take advantage of their flexibility."
The bar line at Kingsport outputs 450 pieces per minute.
"This allows us to go for smaller contracts," Jean-Sébastien
Leclerc said. "Previously, 25,000 cases per year was our
bottom limit, but we can accept smaller jobs now. The narrower lines can be more effective for more customers."

Gearing Up
for Praeventia
In August, Leclerc Foods' award-winning national brand
product comes to Kingsport, TN, when the plant begins
to bake Praeventia cookies on its newest production line.
"We are proud to offer our customers two new innovative cookies sold under the Praeventia brand," said
Frédéric Langlois, vice-president, R&D, Groupe Biscuits
Leclerc, Inc., St. Augustin de Desmaures, QC. "The natural
ingredient we've added to the cookies is a major drawing
card for customers committed to eating well."
The formulation includes Biothera's Wellmune
WGP beta-glucan, clinically proven to enhance key
immune responses. It is derived from the cell walls
of bakers yeast. Both cookie flavors provide 100 mg
of beta-glucan per 30-g packet.
"We are now preparing to produce Praeventia cookies here at Kingsport," explained Jean-Sébastien Leclerc,
account director. He added that the cookies are already
sold to American customers in the South and Northeast.
Introduced in 2009, Praeventia won the Canadian
Grand Prix New Product Award that year
in a juried competition
sponsored
by the Canadian
Council of Grocery
Distributors.
◀ Two new flavors join the
award-winning Praeventia
line of cookies and bars.
GROUPE BISCUITS LECLERC, INC.

Baking & Snack - August 2010

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