CHICAGO — Rademaker USA celebrated the completion of its Rademaker Experience Center in Chicago with a soft opening this month. A few select customers were invited to test product on the installed Radini laminator line and tour the new facility. The official grand opening will be June 13. 

During the pandemic, Rademaker USA was cut off from its Netherland-based parent company, which revealed to Eric Riggle, president of Rademaker USA, the urgent need for the North American arm to establish more locally based support. 

“In COVID, we lost access to our European workforce: our technicians, our bakers,” he said. “We needed to become more self-reliant in North America.” 

The new facility aims to offer that self-reliance with a North American-based dough technologist, Spencer Hendrickson, hired last year. The Experience Center is just under 50,000 square feet and will offer two Radini lines for customers to test their products as well as a warehouse from which Rademaker USA can deliver Radini equipment to customers as quickly as 12 weeks. Riggle said they are also building up a North American-based supply chain for spare parts. 

“Existing customers will benefit from the spare parts supply chain that we develop from this location,” said Nick Magistrelli, vice president of sales, Rademaker USA. “We’ll also be able to support our customers’ needs for training and R&D and new product development. As they struggle with turnover at the plant level, we can now offer them support in North America with service engineers and our technical bakers.” 

The facility was designed to have some symmetry with its sister facility in the Netherlands. The company took occupancy of the building in April 2023 and broke ground on renovations in October. Chicago was chosen as the location due to its proximity to Chicago O’Hare International Airport and existing customers. 

The centerpiece of the Rademaker Experience Center is the testing facility, which features three bays to house the company’s new Radini equipment. In June a donut line will be installed in bay one as well as a future artisan bread line. Bay two includes storage and sanitation, while bay three houses the laminator line, which is currently up and running. In addition to Radini equipment, the testing facility features a Sancassiano mixer and Revent proof box, retarder, and deck and rack ovens. 

Historically Rademaker has been known for industrial sized production lines for laminated products, pizza dough and artisan bread. Radini is a smaller level of equipment, sized for small- to mid-sized bakeries looking to take some of those first steps into automation. 

“This smaller market was untapped for us, and it’s a growth opportunity for Rademaker,” Riggle explained. “Radini is a very standardized line that we can inventory here in our warehouse and deliver equipment faster.” 

An innovation center located less than 10 miles from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is also an easier trek for these potential customers than visiting Rademaker’s Technology Center in the Netherlands.  

That was the case for Dean Chudleigh, owner of Toronto-based Chudleigh’s, who was onsite testing product on the Radini laminator line with his team during Baking & Snack’s visit to the Rademaker Experience Center. 

“It’s only an hour flight to Chicago, which gives us the drive to come more often and test things,” Chudleigh explained.

While the bakery currently has two sheeting lines to produce its apple blossoms and other pastries, Chudleigh described those lines as cobbled together, and he needs something more streamlined and efficient. In the past, Rademaker equipment had been too big for his operation. 

“We might only run a product for two days and then not run it again for five; the size of Rademaker’s equipment as well as their location in Europe just made the company previously out of reach for us,” he said. “The Radini line in Chicago opens up a lot of opportunity for us medium-sized bakers.” 

After seeing the Radini line at iba 2023 in Munich, Chudleigh said he had been eager to test it, so he brought his team as soon as the Rademaker Experience Center was operational. 

“You can look at the manual of the equipment, but not until you’re here and using it, making changes and seeing those cascades of changes do you understand how easy it will be to use the equipment or train someone else to use it,” he said. 

As far as the test itself is concerned? 

“It went exactly as I expected,” he said. “Rademaker has a golden reputation, and it went exactly how I would expect it to knowing that.”

In addition to a testing facility and warehouse, the Rademaker Experience Center features conference rooms, office space, a lounge and hospitality amenities such as coffee bar and refreshments, lockers and a shower. 

“We want clients to be able to relax here before they go to the airport,” Riggle said. 

While Rademaker USA’s system integration team is based out of the Rademaker Experience Center, Riggle was adamant that the new facility does not replace Rademaker USA’s headquarters in Hudson, Ohio. 

“This facility doesn’t have any bearing on the importance of Hudson and the team based there to Rademaker USA,” Riggle said.