Mary’s’ Gone Crackers runs an SQF-certified plant in Reno, Nev., and has five processing lines and four packaging lines producing 16 different branded products. It added its fifth oven in 2023. The plant employs 120 people and produces 42 bags of snacks a minute, said Nate Lindsay, vice president of operations. But they are quickly building on their successes.

“That may be the number today, but tomorrow it will be better,” said Michael Finete, chief executive officer.

The company makes a production schedule forecast for two to three weeks out, then adjusts as needed in weekly operations meetings with members of production, supply chain and warehouse teams, Lindsay said. Production runs 24/5, and sanitation generally begins when the plant shuts down Friday night. PMs are scheduled on weekends and during other scheduled downtime.

The company ships products and receives raw materials five days a week. With such a large facility, there is plenty of space to store ingredients and finished products. They have two permanent refrigerated trailers sitting just outside the facility with a capacity of 40 pallets each to store ingredients.

One line produces the Real Thin Crackers, Kookies and Mary’s Gone Cheezee Crackers. Dry ingredients are loaded manually while water is pumped into the Shaffer mixer that produces 1,000-lb batches. Once mixed, the dough is moved onto a conveyor where it goes into a kibbler, then dumped onto the kibbler belt and Rheon sheeting. The dough is then cut and moves into the 350-foot Bühler oven, the shortest oven in use at the bakery. The crackers are moved through the TNA tumbler before packaging.

The lines that make the original and seeded crackers start in the pre-batch area where raw materials are weighed and measured, and the team records lot numbers for each batch. Ingredients like rice, flax, quinoa and sesame seeds are fed through a Kason sifter to eliminate foreign materials. The three seed lines have two 800-gallon Walker kettles each at the top of the lines where some ingredients are precooked before being added to the Vortex mixers. 

After mixing, the Bühler depositor and flattener ensures the crackers are the right thickness before entering one of the 420-foot 10-chamber Bühler ovens. 

“Thickness of the cracker is very important, so we have a proprietary flattening system,” Finete said. “It’s very important to have consistency in terms of the thickness.”

Once they exit the ovens, crackers go into containers that are wheeled to packaging once they are full. A Frazier and Son bucket elevator takes the crackers up to a Heat and Control Fastback vibratory hopper where the crackers are dropped into an Ishida bagger and scaling system. 

One line is equipped with a Bosch bagger. The bags are injected with nitrogen to extend shelf life, and then move through an Anritsu metal detector and check weigher. 

Then the bags go to either one of three ADCO cartoners or one Triangle cartoner. Boxes run through secondary packaging through a Kyoto case erector and packer or Lantech case erectors and BluePrint Automation case packers. Boxes are labeled with a Markem-Imaje laser printer then manually loaded onto pallets. 

Quality checks are done every shift, monitoring a variety of equipment.

Mary’s Gone Crackers has undergone tremendous changes in the past year with a new leadership team at the helm. The company became a data-centric operation focused on reducing waste and meeting KPIs. The new leadership has beefed up marketing and R&D operations. And doubling production capacity gives Mary’s Gone Crackers a runway toward expanding its lines and customer base. 

“The team has come together and is very focused on our objectives,” Finete said. “We’re executing at a high level, and it’s getting better. Really working together as one team. Watch out for us, and hopefully you will see some neat things happening in the future from Mary’s Gone Crackers. We’re proactive in every area, and our customers are quite happy about that.”

This article is an excerpt from the October 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Mary's Gone Crackers, click here.