Baking & Snack - September 2006 - 49

data monitoring and tracking systems.
Streusel or other toppings are applied just before baking
the bars, which go through a 14-minute bake. They cool on
an I.J. White 800-ft, 10-tier ambient spiral conveyor. Swirl
icing, prepared in one of three Lee kettles, is applied prior
to cooling. Bars then convey up and over other processing lines to the packaging area. All products go through
a series of three Thermo Goring Kerr metal detectors at
critical control points along the process to help isolate
problems and prevent mass product rejection. Conveyed
bars moving into the packing area are split between four
Formost Packaging systems where they are individually
wrapped and manually boxed and cased.
All four lines employ APV Baker ovens, and the plant
uses 14 Formost wrappers, citing operator training and
machine reliability as key attributes for standardizing on
the wrappers for all lines except the enrobing line.
The plant also produces inclusions for yogurt and ice
cream. Its range of items includes clusters, crunchies,
chocolate, graham cracker crumbs and cookie pieces. This line uses a Peerless mixer with CO2 injectors
to help maintain dough temperature. The thin wafer
cookies are produced via a rotary depositor followed by
a quick 6-minute bake.
The crispy baked cookies are then milled and screened
through a Sweco sifter to customer-specific size. Pieces
that are too large are redirected back to the feed conveyor
while fines are added back to the mix at a predetermined
rate. "We also offer GMO-free, organic and nutraceutical inclusions," Mr. Van Laar said. "All our products are
Circle U-dairy kosher certified."
The company produces more than 30 varieties of inclusions ranging from an array of chocolates to almond
and other nuts, coconut and other natural or artificial
fruit flavors, mocha, oatmeal and even a tiramisu crunch.
Low-fat, no-fat, sugar-free and sucrose-free items are
produced as well.
Cookies, however, are Oak State's specialty. Focusing
on indulgent, gourmet-style products, cookie sizes range
between 1.2 oz and 2.5 oz. Chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia nut, oatmeal raisin and other varieties
are produced for nationally known brands, and all products are individually wrapped.
SWEET FUTURE. The plant is in the final stages of start
up for a new chocolate-enrobed product expected to go
into national distribution this fall. This line uses a Shaffer
horizontal mixer for the cookie products. After baking,
the cookies enter the isolated climate-controlled enrobing and packaging room.
The chocolate tanks are stored in a separate room
maintained at 110°F. "Heating the room was a simpler
solution than heating each individual tank," Mr. Goulding said. "Piping heat to each tank would be more expensive and increase the potential for things to go wrong."
54 / BAKING & SNACK / September 2006

The enrobing line uses a Hosokawa Kreuter system and
Houdijk holding and feeding tanks. Once the enrobed
products are cooled, a Benchmark Automation system
feeds the products into a Bosch wrapper.
Although the line is almost three years old and has been
kept immaculately clean in its 27,000-sq-ft production
room, the new product required significant investment
in new equipment. Oak State partnered with its customer
on the capital investment as well as the R&D and processing engineering for the new product. "Partnerships have
been very successful for Oak State," Mr. Goulding concluded. "Sharing risk, reaping benefits, making it work
because we take ownership for our customers' products
as if they had our brand name on them: This recipe is
part of our core philosophy and has worked for a halfcentury. No reason to change now."
Ⅲ

Busy kitchen
Dave Busken, a long-time Oak State'r, and Shannon
Heidl, a recent University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign masters degree graduate in food science, are
kept very busy in the R&D lab either working with
customers or customer requests, or preparing for the
next potential trends in the market. "Watching trends
in other baking sectors, considering all possibilities
is a way that allows us rapid response to customer
requests," Mr. Busken said. "If we already developed
products with items such as omega-3 or new types
or sources of flour, we are better prepared to respond
when customers ask us about these items."
From all appearances, the recent Institute of Food
Technologists' conference and Food Expo provided
several new ideas and confirmed a number of emerging trends for the R&D team. "Health and wellness,
trans fat, clean labels, low sugar, soy, flax, whole grains,
unique flavor combinations, grains such as spelt and
teff, and other items and ideas will keep us hopping
for the next year," Mr. Busken concluded.
ᮡ Peggy Goulding (left), the company's registered dietician, listens as the
R&D staff of Dave Busken and Shannon Heidl evaluate a test batch of muffins
produced with ancient grains.

Baking & Snack - September 2006

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