Baking & Snack - April 2005 - 40

FOODS
FOODS

ᮡ One line with "double drop" capacity supplies
flour tortillas to two oven-and-cooler lines.
Because of rising demand for flour tortillas, Casa
de Oro plans to install a second system.

17 truckloads." Louisville received a
rush order for 17 loads of chips that
had to be completed within a week
as an add-on to the regular schedule.
The customer stipulated that if the
order did not get out in time, it would
be cancelled completely.
"The first day, the warehouse employees loaded one truck, the second
day two trucks," he recalled. "With
time getting short, they had to figure
out how to accelerate floor-loading a
truck in two hours and still get their
regular schedule completed.
"Yes, the 17 truckloads were
shipped on time, but it involved
considerable ingenuity on the part
of the staff," he said. "It proved a
success, and it boosted morale and
teamwork."
HIGH CAPABILITIES. Over the
years, Louisville accumulated 85,000
sq ft of manufacturing space through
various additions. A large 80,000-sqft warehouse was the most recent.

42 / BAKING & SNACK / April 2005

"The building has plenty of floor
space available for more equipment
and lines," said Mr. Kraut.
Frying oil, flour and dry corn
enter the facility via bulk storage
silos. "We have the capacity to hold
190,000 lb of fry oil, 30,000 lb of
liquid shortening, 360,000 lb of flour
and 450,000 lb of corn." All other
raw materials are received in bags
and boxes and held in a portion of
the large warehouse.
Prep for flour tortillas starts with
weighing out hand-adds and mixing
the dough in 1,000-lb batches. From
the Peerless horizontal mixer, dough
moves into a Lawrence Double Drop
OP/AL press line. Here it is divided
into individual pieces, rested in an
overhead proofer and automatically
heat-pressed before going into the
oven. The single system actually
feeds two oven-and-cooler lines. The
company makes its flour tortillas in
diameters ranging from 6 to 13 in.
and flavors including spinach and
tomato, among others.
With the pending introduction of
Chi-Chi's flour tortillas, the company plans to add another flour tortilla
system, similar in size to the dual line
now operating.
After baking in a 3-pass oven,
the tortillas cool on a multiple-tier
cascade system that feeds them into
automatic counter-stacker systems.
Line operators pull off the stacked
tortillas and place them in poly bags.
When bagging shelf-stable products,
the stacked tortillas can be fed into a
Hayssen overwrapper equipped with
gas-flush capacity. Assembly of dinner kits is also done on the Hayssen
line. Operators stack finished packaged into shipping cases and stack
them onto waiting pallets.
"Most flour tortilla users are going
to shelf-stable products and getting
away from refrigerated and frozen
styles," Mr. Kraut observed.

ᮣ Flour tortillas leave the multi-tiered cooling conveyor and pass to the automatic counter-stacker.

Adjacent to the flour tortilla packout area is one of the plant's newest
lines: a Rademaker yeast-raised dough
makeup system. This flatbread line
produces gordita shells, pizza crust,
breadsticks and lavosh, among other
products. It uses a 7-tier cascade-style
proofer enclosed in a humidity- and
temperature-controlled room. After
baking, the flatbreads travel through
an I.J. White spiral cooler in a separate
climate-controlled room, allowing
their internal temperatures to drop
from 200°F to 35°F before packaging.
CORN SIDE. The oldest section of the
plant houses the three institutional
corn tortilla lines plus a new taco
shell line. Corn cooking takes place
in a mezzanine that allows gravity to
feed the die-cut lines below. The company uses yellow and white varieties
of corn, sometimes blending the two
when formulations require.
Three banks of kettles supply
cooked corn, with each bank having
two 700-lb-capacity, steam-jacketed
cooking kettles. After cooking, the
corn is pumped into a single 1,400-lb
tank that supplies the long rows of
steeping tanks. Corn remains in these
tanks for six to 18 hours before use.

Baking & Snack - April 2005

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