Baking&Snack - March 2014 - 42

(Left) A 3% caustic solution
waterfalls over dough
pieces to give pretzel buns
their traditional German
flavor and texture.
(Right) An 8-pocket divider
cranks out thousands of
dough balls per hour on the
bakery's high-speed roll line.

IHB strives to make sure that breads have a 32°C
(90°F) internal temperature before entering the blast
freezer. "We freeze it one-third of the way through,
then package it and put it into a holding freezer to
freeze it all the way," Dennis Rossetti said. "When making a fully baked frozen product, moisture management is what it's all about. If you try to freeze to the
center, you have to get more aggressive with the process because the outside begins acting like an insulating barrier. The longer you freeze it, the greater the
chance of drying the product out."
Frozen products are hand packed in bulk because of
the items' irregular shapes and sizes. IHB relies on two
tractor trailers to hold frozen product prior to delivery.
The company does not build inventory. "We fill orders in
a just-in-time scenario," Dennis Rossetti said.
Conventional sandwich breads travel though a UBE
slicer/bagger at 50 loaves a minute. The bakery also has a
UBE straight-through slicer and a UBE web/hinge slicer.
IHB defines sustainability in two ways. From an en-

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When it came to updating its logo and packaging, Italian
Home Bakery didn't want to live in the past. Rather, the
bakery simply wanted to recreate it.
The new retail packaging features a red-and-white gingham
pattern reminiscent of what many consumers grew up with in
their parents' or grandparents' homes. "We asked ourselves
what it means to have our products sit on our customers'
kitchen counters, explained Dennis Rossetti, president and
"
COO. "We hemmed and hawed about the design, but we discovered one of the most common things in people's homes,
especially European homes, is a gingham dish towel, so we
decided to dress up our packaging in that manner.
"

42 Baking & Snack March 2014 / www.bakingandsnack.com

vironmental perspective, the company instituted a new
waste-management system and recently became "zero
impact to landfill" in December. "But sustainability
can mean lots of things," Dennis Rossetti said. "For us,
sustainability is how to grow the business. It involves
remaining flexible in a changing market."
To adjust to a shifting competitive market, the
company recently reduced the size of loaves from 675 g
(20 oz) to 575 g (18 oz). In addition to cost savings, the
products provide smaller households with a more userfriendly size, according to John Rossetti.
It's not unusual for IHB - or any mid-sized company
- to spend two to three years researching a major capital investment. Currently, the bakery is exploring the
installation of a third 100-ft tunnel oven or possibly
a multi-deck thermal oil oven as well as an upgrade of
one of its roll makeup lines. IHB's strategy is to combine a short-term focus with a long-range outlook. "We
want to determine what platform is best for us and what
equipment will provide us with the greatest flexibility in
the future," John Rossetti said. "When you're buying a
100-ft tunnel oven, you don't have a second chance to
make it right."
Its conservative approach to investing allows the company to weather changes in the market. "We want to
make sure we keep our major stakeholders - our vendors, financial institutions and customers - happy to
absorb any bumps in the marketplace," he added.
As its frozen business expands, however, IHB may
explore building a second bakery so it can run dedicated
frozen and fresh operations. In the end, it's all about being true to what made the company successful in the first
place.
"As long as we continue to make excellent products
at an affordable price, we'll see continued growth," John
Rossetti explained.

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Baking&Snack - March 2014

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