A new facility was an inevitability for Carolina Foods, Pineville, NC, in the eyes of both the Scarborough family and Falfurrias Capital Partners. Dan Myers, chief executive officer, Carolina Foods, noted that, according to the family, Falfurrias was the only potential buyer that was committed to building a new facility to support the company’s growth. This was a significant reason why the Scarborough family chose Falfurrias. 

“They also happened to be headquartered in the Charlotte area and committed to the city, so it all aligned quite nicely,” he continued. 

The South End bakery was landlocked, and the neighborhood was transforming away from industrial manufacturing, so it was in the company’s best interest to find a new location. Pineville, a suburb of Charlotte, was only 10 minutes from South End, and 89% of the current employees said they would be willing and able to commute that distance. The new bakery is also close to three main highways, making it ideal for both employees’ commutes and logistics. 

“Retaining our workforce was vitally important because we needed to keep that organizational knowledge,” Myers said. “We’re also positioned to draw workforce not just from Charlotte but also the surrounding communities east and west of Charlotte and even into South Carolina.” 

Constructing a greenfield bakery, rather than retrofitting an existing building, allowed Carolina Foods to build in the latest engineering techniques and technology to ensure it could turn out the highest quality products as efficiently as possible. 

“Building a new facility to support the next 90 years for Carolina Foods is exciting, and Falfurrias allowed us to start with a clean canvas without constraints,” Myers said. “Each line runs straight, north to south, with good process flow, safety and material handling at the forefront.” 

The 428,000-square-foot facility features a 40-foot ceiling clearance. Eventually, it will house seven production lines and 20 packaging lines, but at the time of Baking & Snack’s visit, one line was operational with a second staged for installation. It will include a warehouse for finished products. The facility also isn’t landlocked and can expand in the future. 

Carolina Foods worked with developer Beacon Partners and broke ground in August 2022. The baking company took occupancy in early 2024, and the first production line started up March 11. The South End facility will continue operations until the end of 2025 when the new Pineville bakery will fully replace it. From an engineering perspective, the building is completely climate controlled, both temperature and humidity. An air purification and ionization system ensures the facility is as clean as possible to prevent mold growth on product. It’s an extra step Carolina Foods has taken to ensure the freshest sweet goods with an extended shelf life. The building also was engineered for positive pressure everywhere except the fryer room. 

“South End has made a high-quality product and delivered great service,” Myers said. “This facility is taking it to the next level with technology, climate control and the use of data from process controls to drive improvements.” 

In addition, Carolina Foods is investing in analytics capabilities to capture more data than ever throughout the process: temperature, humidity, piece weight and more. This level of data analysis has empowered Carolina Foods to adopt an aggressive continuous improvement mindset. 

“We always want to reduce waste and discover what the root cause is from a yield perspective,” Myers said. “Investment in technology has allowed that to become clearer. In our business, there are too many variables, so we must control the variables in order to put out a quality product on a consistent basis.” 

Protein levels of incoming flour are analyzed; automated ingredient handling ensures accurate dosing; checkweighers measure both piece and tray weight; and a vision system checks dimensions of products before they’re picked by robots. Between data tracking and the facility environment, the Pineville plant will be able to produce the same honey buns and donuts in July that it does in January. This data also empowers the team on the floor to address problems immediately as they arise. 

“There wasn’t a continuous improvement department before, and now we have a continuous improvement mindset,” explained Stuart Smith, vice president, operations, Carolina Foods. “We have 400 to 450 team members who are now problem solvers, and the speed at which we solve problems accelerates when everyone is a problem solver.”

With so many variables monitored and controlled, Carolina Foods also invested in Schubert packaging systems for primary and secondary packaging for honey buns. Robotic arms pick and place honey buns into a flow wrapper and finally into trays for packing. Robots demand precise products to deliver the expected efficiencies from such a system. The upstream investments Carolina Foods has made ensure the product delivered to the robotic arms is consistent and in spec. 

“When you feed a precision system a precise product, it’s a beautiful thing,” Smith said.

This article is an excerpt from the July 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Carolina Foods, click here.