ON THE COVER: Key managers surround the Rosen family, Highland Baking’s owners (front row from left) Gail Rosen, Jim Rosen, Cheryl Wedyck and (back row, 2nd from right) Stu Rosen. (back row, from left) Steve Barnhart, Mike Galenson, Boris Golenson, Vince Miller, and (far right) Frank Nevarez.

Photos by Paul Strabbing.

One of the most unique aspects of Highland Baking is its capacity to manage two bakeries under one roof. The north side of the plant services its fresh routes, while the south side houses more automated equipment to meet the high-volume demands of its frozen business. Differences between the types of equipment operating in the two sides of the plant account for flexibility in batch size, speed and volume of production.

Two bakeries in one

Five or six years ago, an automated lifter was the extent of the bakery's level of automation, notes Gail Rosen. Now, a 300,000-lb. capacity silo meters flour to mixers throughout the plant. All other ingredients are scaled by hand.

The north side is equipped with six production lines designed for quick changeovers to support the company's fresh route business and small test runs for potentially larger volumes. Included among its six lines is a bread divider line that produces 1-lb. to 3-lb. loaves with different toppings; a two-pocket divider for French breads; a six-pocket divider for hamburger buns, 0.6-oz. mini dinner rolls and appetizer rolls; a six-pocket divider for Kaiser rolls, knot rolls and buns; and an artisan line that produces European-style crusty breads. A product, such as a pretzel roll, can run on any one of the six lines, depending on the style and size, notes Mike Galenson, director of operations.

Once products are divided, they rest on the floor for 30 minutes before entering one of the proof boxes, where they will proof at 90°F, 85% RH for 40 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on the dough. Product then bakes in one of 16 rack ovens or three deck ovens, depending on the type of bread or roll. Finished baked products are cooled under ambient conditions, sliced or hinged if needed and sent through packaging lines, each of which is equipped with a metal detector. Fresh products are then staged for shipping.

Specialty breads and rolls are made in smaller batches on the plant’s north side to meet customer order requirements.

Photos by Paul Strabbing

On the south side of the plant, three 1000-lb. dough mixers prepare product for two highly automated lines. One line is equipped with a bread divider and a six-pocket divider and the other, a six-pocket divider and one 10-pocket divider for buns. Divided dough passes onto a panning table where dough pieces are automatically dropped onto pans, manually loaded onto racks and hauled to proof boxes. Highland Baking doesn't use overhead proofers, but instead prefers to visually inspect dough going into pans and the proofer, which has more of a scratch-made appeal, Galenson notes.

Pans travel through a seeding and scoring station, if required, and then through one of two tunnel ovens. When product exits the oven it is depanned and conveyed through one of two spiral cooling tunnels that cools at ambient temperatures. Once product is packed, cased and palletized, it is hauled to the bakery's new 14,000-sq.-ft. freezer for storage.

Facing down challenges

One of the biggest challenges Highland Baking faces is maintaining its flexibility throughout multiple product changeovers, Galenson notes. Customers want different samples, which must be turned around quickly. Even so, the company's greatest challenge also is one of its major assets. “We do have the ability to test product on the north side first, develop the flavor, the size and hopefully what the customer wants, and then move it to the south side for production on an industrial scale,” Galenson adds. “On the north side, we can do a 50-lb. to a 400-lb. batch, versus a 1,000-lb. batch on the south side. We can do a baking test in the rack oven and afterwards produce it on a larger scale in the tunnel oven.”

At one point, a segment of the staff felt the bakery should get out of the local route business, given the amount of attention and work force dedicated to it, but Stu and Jim “came to the realization that, if we lose the fresh business, we lose the foundation of who we are,” Stu says.

“The fresh business is an amazing business generator for our frozen side,” Stu adds. “It's a great product development tool. You can almost track every frozen customer of ours back to our fresh business in some way or another. It allows us to stay in direct contact with the restaurants in the industry in a very basic way. For us to stay in business with those independent restaurants, partnering with them, customizing for them, gives us a head start for the work we might be doing with the chains a couple of years from now. We look at it in two ways: We can handle the volume for a 2,000-unit chain that wants to do a 10-store test for a year. But, when the customer is ready to roll out with the product, we've got the equipment designed to do that. Also, for a chain that might be a start up, but really believes it might grow to 1,000 units one day, we can start with them and take them through every stage of its progression.”