Baking & Snack - March 2018 - 48

MORE THAN A BAKERY

To meet strict food
safety standards, the
only ones able to traverse from pre-bake to
post-bake in the facility
are the products through
the hybrid oven.

designed to be user-friendly, with ergonomically designed
magazines operators can fill with one sweeping motion
reminiscent of a blackjack dealer's sleight of hand.
Once the magazines are filled, six semi-automatic disc
feeders rotate under the chutes and strip the product to
be fed into the Formost Fuji Alpha 7 horizontal wrappers. In this case, graham crackers for a school foodser-

"We're doing things in food
safety here that may not
have been done before."
Bob Ramsey, More Than A Bakery
vice customer were being wrapped in three-count packages, which the disc feeders stripped in a two-and-one
pattern.
In the spirit of More Than A Bakery's high standards
for sanitation, the Alpha 7, which uses a cold-seal film,
has a cantilevered design that allows for any debris
or crumbs to fall to the floor without buildup on the
machine.
Because cases are packed manually, Mr. Bruner
worked with Benchmark to design a semi-automated
system to bring erected cases downstream to the operators, who can then place the boxes on an angled table for
easy hand-loading of individually wrapped product.

Reverse-engineering a culture
It's one thing to start a new bakery operation from a 100year foundation, but through the innovations being developed at More Than A Bakery, the child stands ready
to teach the parent.

48 Baking & Snack March 2018 / www.bakingandsnack.com

For starters, an entirely new operation allows the
company to take advantage of technology and IT advances such as the Plex ERP system. "We had an opportunity to put in technology that we don't currently
have in some of our other facilities," Mr. Ramsey said.
"It handles and tracks all our production and accounting
information and inventory of receiving and distribution.
We'll be putting that in the Georgia facility next year,
and by then we'll all be on the same platform."
While some aspects such as fully captive uniforms
and shoes are logistically harder to implement in the
older facilities without a structural overhaul, many of
the daily practices that were second nature at Richmond
Baking are seen through new eyes at More Than A
Bakery. "In our other facilities, when I have to make a
decision about discipline, I would simply say, 'You know
better,' " Ms. Quigg said. "But here, I stop and think, 'Do
you know better? Have we given you the right resources
and put a process in place?' "
As the More Than A Bakery team looks toward the
future, the opportunities in Versailles seem endless
with room to add a second line in the existing space or
expand across the 113 acres. "I hope our next line not
only expands on our existing capacity but also allows
us to look at different opportunities in the future," Mr.
Miller said.
More Than A Bakery - with its holistic methods of
putting people and products first - has the power to
transform traditional family ties into an entirely new
normal. "This is the sea change," Ms. Quigg said. "Our
full intent is to design what we do and how we do it so
that it supports the culture we're shooting for. Then we'll
figure out how to roll it out to the other bakeries. We're
starting here from a clean slate."
Perhaps it's about time, Mr. Ramsey suggested. "Every
100 years or so, you just need to build something new."

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Baking & Snack - March 2018

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