Baking & Snack - June 2024 - 32

JTM FOODS
but the second line will be equipped to add a top drizzle.
The company was preparing for the second line during
Baking & Snack's visit, which is expected to be running
in July. Pooley noted how important it is to ensure that
the foundation, which is treated with a sealant to ensure
there are no cracks or crevices where the new machinery
will go, is done right before bringing in equipment.
" Once we get that infrastructure set, then really the
easier or faster part is bringing in the equipment and
putting it on top of that foundation, " he said.
The first line can make 358 2-oz pies a minute, more
than 170,000 pies in an eight-hour shift. The line is fed
by two 80,000-lb Gemini Bakery Equipment flour silos
located in the plant, and outside GW Cobb storage tanks
for oil, fructose and sucrose. Two 50-foot-by-50-foot
Kolpak freezers hold raw ingredients and some finished
product. During an eight-hour shift, the Wichita plant
makes 20 to 25 batches of dough in a 900-lb capacity
Sancassiano mixer. The doughs go into a Colborne
Foodbotics table where dough is sheeted and filled.
Fillings are all made from scratch in-house and are
cooked in Lee kettles on a platform built by UDMC. Up
to seven batches of filling are made each day.
After the pies are cut, they move to the dealer table
then head into the 31-foot Heat & Control fryer. The
warm pies travel under a Hobart glazer then are moved
to an IJ White ambient spiral cooler. A Garvey accumulation
system handles overflow, taking the pies onto a
roundabout belt, and they are slowly fed back into the
line as they head to packaging.
After passing through a Mettler Toledo metal detecTop:
The automated
packaging system wraps
pies then places them in
cartons before they are
boxed and put on pallets.
Bottom: JTM Foods' pie
line in Wichita is fully
automated.
Every day we want to be a little bit better than the day
before, repeating that consistency every day. "
Full steam ahead
JTM's Wichita plant is fully automated, and Pooley said
that line speed and product quality go hand-in-hand.
" The analogy we use is that these pies are like little
lightbulbs, " he said. " The fewer touches, the better the
chance that lightbulb - or pie - is going to make it
through the system looking like it ought to. Automation
allows us to reduce touches. "
Although the plant is spacious, leaders are keeping
space tight for the first two lines to ensure they have
plenty of room to expand in the future, with plans to
eventually house eight to 10 lines. While the first line is
producing 2-oz pies and has the capability for 1-oz products,
the second will make 4-oz pies and will be capable
of 3-oz as well. The equipment will be virtually the same,
32 Baking & Snack June 2024 / www.bakingbusiness.com
tor, the finished pies go into the SACMI flowwrapper
then the SACMI Trisealer picks and places the wrapped
pies into boxes, and the boxes are hand-packed into cases
before ending at the Lantec pallet wrapper.
JTM works closely with third-party carriers to make
consolidated truckloads as efficient as possible.
" In reality, once you place an order, you will have
product in no more than 14 days, " Bilello said. " It's a
made-to-order process. That production scheduling, logistics
and final shipment have to be connected together
to make sure the product is as high-quality as can be. "
JTM Foods has ambitious plans to expand the categories
they inhabit, but also to find other avenues to serve
consumers of sweet snacks. The Wichita plant shows the
ambition and optimism of leaders focused on the future.
" We want to be the best choice in snacking solutions, "
Pooley said. " We want to expand the portfolio of solutions
in ways that make sense for our partners. If we
work well with the categories that we have today, we
could take that same approach and expand into categories
where there are opportunities, and there are opportunities
out there. "
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Baking & Snack - June 2024

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