Changing with the times

Unlike many dedicated bun operations, the new line produces up to six different varieties of artisan buns and rolls a day, resulting in multiple changeovers that can often be a timely, costly and labor-intensive process.

“We worked with our suppliers and told them we wanted a 10-minute changeover,” Mr. Mitchell said.

Specifically, they focused on quick disconnects involving replacing carriages, tool-less adjustments and other creative solutions. Today, changeovers can be as short as three to five minutes. In all, the company routinely experiences only about 20 minutes of downtime — on both lines — during a full day of production.

Overall, the SQF Level 3-certified facility has about 34,700 square feet of processing, 17,000 square feet for packaging, 6,300 square feet for warehousing and the remainder for office and other space. Three shifts run 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a full day of preventive maintenance and sanitation on Saturdays for Line No. 1 and a full day on Sundays for Line No. 2. In all, 100 people now work at the Turano Florida Bun operation.

The bakery has three Shick USA 225,000-lb flour silos, two 92,000-lb soy oil and sugar tanks and two 60,000-lb cream yeast tanks set outside the building. The company recently installed a fourth 165,000-lb silo for high-gluten artisan flour. To show how much production has grown, flour deliveries have doubled to 18 weekly during the past year, with the operation typically using up to 1 million lb a week, Mr. Mitchell said.

Shick bag-dump stations offer the option to supply mixers with minor ingredients. Supersack dispensers provide salt and, more recently, granulated sugar. The company added the sugar system to provide extra ­flexibility in formulation of buns and rolls for its customers.

With the new line, Turano Baking installed a Shick 1,000-gallon brew system that’s slightly larger than the original 700-gal batch operation. Mr. Mitchell pointed out that the company learned it needed a slightly larger system to keep up with demand and offer flexibility to more easily adjust fermentation based on the quality of flour.

“We built contingency into the bakery. Both systems can go back and forth between the two lines,” he noted.

A Shick IntelliBatch ingredient management system controls the inventory of ingredients and their flow to the mixers, which includes an AMF Bakery Systems 2,400-lb horizontal mixer and a CMC America 1,600-lb mixer. Turano Baking installed the smaller mixer to provide the versatility to create doughs as little as 800 lb in size for specialty and artisan-style buns and rolls as well as to cater to a wider variety of customers.

During this year’s Baking & Snack visit, the bakery cranked out brioche rolls on Line No. 2 using the AMF mixer. The dough chunks then enter the AMF HBD/SMP divider/sheeter. The eight-pocket extrusion divider can run up to 90 cuts a minute for high-speed bun production or 65 cuts a minute for artisan-style products like brioche. Each pump has its own servo motor to adjust dividing more quickly and with greater accuracy. After traveling through an AMF Accupan bun makeup system with rounder bars, the dough balls receive a brief intermediate proof. A Laramore centralized reclamation system removes excess dusting flour from both lines.

Producing artisan-style buns and rolls requires a different approach from making high-speed hamburger buns, Mr. Mitchell said.

“What the team needed to learn about artisan rolls is completely opposite from what they learned from producing conventional buns,” he explained. “You want the baking process to achieve a pronounced break-and-shred along with an open grain and a darker crust color.”

A Burford orbital shaker aligns the panned dough pieces. To mimic capabilities on Line No. 1, the new line has a Burford Smart Seeder and a water splitter.

The 24- to 48-piece pans then enter a Stewart Systems conveyorized proof-and-bake system. Thanks to the crossover design of the interior conveyors, the pans enter and exit the systems at waist height.

“The proofer is designed to produce two completely different rolls,” Mr. Mitchell observed. “Artisan-style products require much drier proofing while high-speed buns need much more moisture. We want the brioche to show stress cracks and cell structure, which are typical of an artisan-style product.”

After depanning, the buns travel up to the mezzanine level and cool for 28 to 30 minutes on an AMF variable-speed spiral cooler with Intralox belting. A Sightline vision system inspects all buns and rolls. Because the inspection system is located on an elevated platform after the cooler, Turano Baking installed a second viewing panel next to the oven, allowing the operator to monitor products and make real time adjustments to the baking process.

For a smooth transition from one variety to another, the bakery installed a Stewart pan stacker/unstacker system that works with the Workhorse pan system that feeds both lines.