With demand on the rise for convenience items, innovation can be seen in the packaging area, especially for those single-serve, 4-oz cookies staking their claim in the c-stores.
“We designed multiple avenues that can be used across a number of packaging, whether it’s clamshell, individually wrapped or bulk packaging,” Mr. Mina said. “We set up the area for easy process flow, which allows for more versatility.”
For example, two identical Fuji horizontal flowwrapping systems create redundancy to keep the line moving should any stops occur. The line also was customized for the ability to bypass converters for bulk packing into boxes or clamshells.
After the cookies are individually wrapped, employees hand-pack into the secondary packaging such as display cartons, which hold eight individually wrapped cookies for c-store sales. Afterwards, tamper-proof seals are applied by hand. Some automation may loom on the horizon for this area, but Mr. Mina emphasized that certain parts of packaging still require some human interaction.
“Having people looking to not only package the food but also look at the quality, that’s not something we’ll not look to eliminate,” he said. People are present to monitor the cookies as they enter the packaging room before they feed into the flowwrappers. “They make sure nothing’s broken and peel off anything that doesn’t fit. A machine won’t tell you if a cookie is broken, cracked or misshapen; these people pay attention to that.”
After secondary packaging, cartons go through another Safeline metal detector before being hand-packed into cases and automatically sealed and closed, then checkweighed and ink coded for traceability. The cases are stacked on a pallet and secured with a Lantech stretch wrapper before heading to the holding freezer. At -10°F, the final freeze takes about 12 hours. At that point, it’s just a matter of waiting for clearance from the final sensory testing the next morning before shipment across the United States and to Canada.
Data scanned into the SAP goes directly into Aryzta’s ERP system, and once validated, will go straight to the shipping point.
“Anything can be traced down to the case or ingredient level in the event of a recall,” Mr. Mina noted.
The future looks bright
The 101,000-square-foot Alsip bakery has plenty of room to grow as Otis Spunkmeyer increases its presence in the grab-and-go and c-store channel.
“We could potentially duplicate this production line three or four times if we need to,” he said.
Growing Otis Spunkmeyer into the future includes building off the No Funky Stuff success and taking it full bore into snacking and convenience.
“We’re seeing that when it comes to snacking, consumers want to buy foods with better-for-you ingredients, no matter where they are,” Ms. Grace said.
From an R.&D. perspective, Mr. Davis sees plenty of opportunity in the snacking and grab-and-go segments.
“I’d love to take the cookies that everybody knows and offer them in a way that can go into lunchboxes or snacks,” he said. “This is an indulgence, but it’s one with a level of transparency.”
And transparency is something that goes deeper than the ingredient list for Otis Spunkmeyer. It’s what the brand promises its customers and consumers and expects from its own vendors.
“People crave sweets; that won’t change,” Ms. Kim said. “Otis Spunkmeyer’s No Funky Stuff sweets offer a better snacking option for consumers, and that’s something that everyone can feel good about.”
