Dan Malovany

In today’s tight labor market, many bakeries are creating a more secure, employee-friendly workplace by automating unnecessary lifting, repetitive motion and other tasks like manual stacking, unstacking and storing of pans. This allows companies to move employees to other positions within the operation that contribute greater value to the bottom line.

Some businesses search for greatness. Others, like Great Kitchens Food Co., already have it in their name, and with it comes mighty expectations to do something special.

CHICAGO — A new PMMI report on Snack Foods Packaging Trends to be released in December will show that three of four snack companies purchased packaging equipment in the past year, and almost 90% of them are expecting to invest in packaging systems over the next three years, noted Tom Egan, vice president of industry services for PMMI.

When Great Kitchens decided to upgrade its Brockton, Mass., plant last year, the operations and engineering teams faced a puzzle with many pieces and several obstacles. The first involved replacing the aging dough ball and press line with a much longer sheeting operation with a new oven and fitting it in the already cramped facility.

When it comes to investing, Henk Hartong certainly likes the frozen pizza market. The chairman and chief executive officer of Brynwood Partners got his first taste with the purchase of Wheeling, Ill.-based Richelieu Foods, a contract manufacturer of pizza that the private equity firm purchased in 2005 and sold five years later.

When making pizzas, the process is pretty straightforward, but at Great Kitchens’ pizza topping plant in Romeoville, Ill., with six lines producing over 100 SKUs at a capacity of more than 100,000 lbs annually, a million things must go right for the operation to have a good day.

’Tis the season for pies, but at the start of the New Year, consumers’ desire for these family-sized, wholesome desserts always tends to wane and even disappear. It’s not magic. It’s just the seasonal nature of the category. The challenge is how to make pies top-of-mind all the time.

Nobody can ignore donuts, especially the freshly made ones whose aroma makes consumers suddenly absent-minded when it comes to eating healthy. Despite all the emphasis on nutrition and wellness, donut sales have been persistently resilient, and it’s easy to see why.

Great Kitchens installs new pizza line to boost capacity and heighten its product quality at its Brockton, Mass, plant.

After the initial investment in a donut line, the biggest operational cost involves the cooking oil. Proper oil management will allow the user to reduce the "throwaway" oil. Oil is replaced because of many factors. One of those is oxidation, which is caused by exposure to air that shortens the oil’s life and diminishes its quality.