LEHIGH VALLEY, PA. — A little less than two years ago, Bimbo Bakeries USA opened a 240,000-square-foot commercial baking facility in Lehigh Valley. The plant features a bakery and ingredients processing area, multiple production lines, receiving and shipping facilities, packaging and warehouse areas, office and employee facilities, and other support areas.
Shot on location in Pennsylvania, Pixel House Creative combined interviews from Bimbo executives and members of the company’s team to create a 5-minute, 46-second video about the plant and what sets it apart from others in the industry. Subsequent to the posting of this article Pixel House Creative removed the video from its web site.
“First of all, I think it’s important to realize where Lehigh Valley as a bakery is,” explained Fred Penny, president of B.B.U., in the video. “It’s in the northeastern part of the U.S. where we have high market shares, a strong profitability base, but it’s also a market that’s becoming increasingly competitive. So the Lehigh bakery is really at the core of our strategy to make a more efficient supply chain, and really position us to be competitive for the future.”
The bakery makes Sara Lee, Nature’s Harvest, Ball Park and Stroehmann products.
“The Lehigh Valley bakery was conceived as the most modern bakery in the world,” said Ramon Rivera, senior vice-president of operations for B.B.U. “We added a lot of technology, a lot of automation.”
Tom Morse, plant manager at Lehigh Valley, added, “Lots of automation here. We have an automated ingredient system that flows the ingredients over to the mixers automatically. We have a robotic pan-handling system that takes away all the manual labor. We have Bundy robots that aligns and balances the product as it goes into the baggers and slicers.”
John Bowden, vice-president of operations, MetroAtlantic Business Unit, B.B.U., called the Lehigh plant a “game changer” for B.B.U. in the northeast.
“The level of automation and the speed of our lines, we’re able to produce a much higher quality of product at a much lower cost,” he said.
Pixel House Creative developed a similar video several years ago that provided a look at B.B.U.’s bakery in Rockwall, Texas.
