Baking & Snack - April 2005 - 37

FOODS

is geared to manufacture a lot of
different products, including flour
tortillas, corn tortillas, tortilla chips,
ready-to-fry tortilla chips, taco
shells, meal kits and even breadsticks
and pizza crusts," Mr. Longacre said.
"One of the first things we had
to do was narrow that focus and
improve operating efficiency in the
remaining product lines," he continued. "As a result, we decided to sell
one of the new processing lines that
ConAgra installed just a few years
ago and to concentrate on increasing
the line efficiency and the capacity in
our flour and corn tortilla production. We will be purchasing a new
flour tortilla line for Louisville as
part of the changing focus."
Creating Casa de Oro Foods,
ConAgra converted an idled food
processing facility at Omaha to
make tortillas primarily to serve one
large quick service restaurant (QSR)
account. "Within two years, we
doubled the number of lines in the
plant and expanded our customer
base," he continued. "We effectively
'filled up' the plant, but we do have
ample land to expand there."
Louisville, on the other hand, was
purpose-built in the mid-1980s by
the Chi-Chi's restaurant group as a

tortilla facility and operated as Mesa
Foods. The plant experienced several
additions over the years, reaching
today's 185,000 sq ft, but the site's
ample acreage still has room for future expansion.
"Chi-Chi's ran the business until 1998, when I purchased it for
ConAgra and made it a part of Casa
de Oro," Mr. Longacre said.
Mr. Longacre was the executive
who took charge of Casa de Oro
when it was formed by ConAgra in
1992. He had previously worked in
the company's flour and specialty
grains companies for more than
25 years. Although he left ConAgra
three years ago, he stayed in touch
with many of the Casa de Oro managers. When Plaza Belmont acquired
Casa in January 2004, Mr. Stout
asked him to rejoin the business.
Although the company's senior
management team is split between
the two plants at Omaha and Louisville, it operates as one team focused
on improving results of the entire
company. There is no "home office"
mentality here. "We operate as a
team, and we will continue to operate that way with strong managers in
both locations," said Mr. Longacre.
"Our senior operations manager,

Jon Heussner, and our head of product development, Charlie Kraut, are
both located at Omaha; however,
both of them have been extremely
active in making improvements to
the Louisville facility," he continued.
In order to emphasize the importance of the dramatic improvements
necessary at Louisville, Mr. Longacre
decided to relocate there.
This plant runs two heat-press
flour tortilla lines, three corn tortilla
lines and one tortilla chip line. Most
corn lines are fed by an on-site wet
masa (cooked corn) operation, although prepared dry masa flour is
also used for some items. "ConAgra
put in two new processing lines a
couple years ago, one for taco shells
and the other for what I call flat
breads, which includes pizza crust
and bread sticks," Mr. Longacre
added. "While the new taco shell line
fits into our future strategy, the flat
bread line does not."
"Although we are selling one line
and getting out of the flat bread
business, we are in the process of installing a new line to make tostadas,
buying a new flour tortilla line and
upgrading all of Louisville's remaining lines," Mr. Stout explained. He
added that some updating projects
have already started.
A GREAT BRAND. With Louisville,
Casa de Oro diversified greatly
in product offerings and markets
served. Among the most important
assets was the Chi-Chi's retail brand,
licensed to the company by the restaurant chain.
"The Chi-Chi's brand is well recognized by the consumer, being one
of the first big restaurant chains to
feature Mexican foods," Mr. Longacre
observed. "The brand has great identity, and we plan to continue to expand our Chi-Chi's line of products."
Within 30 days, the company will
ᮤ An on-site corn cooking operation supplies
wet masa to the tortilla chip operation. The plant
also uses dry masa for some items.

April 2005 / BAKING & SNACK / 39

Baking & Snack - April 2005

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - April 2005