Baking & Snack - May 2008 - 49

50
87 full-time employees and 60
semipermanent temps and runs two
shifts with the third for sanitation.
Rick Myette, QA manager, joined
the company just after it signed the
deal for the new plant. "We have a
lot of quality systems in place, but
as you know, we have expanded tre-

mendously in the past two years, and
it is really a different company than it
was," he said. "Initially, my focus was
to ensure no system falls through the
cracks and that our quality and standards remain as high now as they
were when we were a smaller company. Quality assurance relies heavily

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BAKING & SNACK / May 2008

on operations people to monitor and
control quality, and we have several
third-party audits as well.
"The uniqueness of this company
is the people," Mr. Myette continued. "He [Mr. Bouchrouche] might
be a self-admitted micromanager,
but he is the right type of manager.
He knows what is going on and surrounds himself with people who
share his vision and have capability
and trust to get the job done."
BAGEL PUSHING. Bagel Boy purchased the 195,000-sq-ft building
with room to grow. It currently has
three silos with space for a fourth that
will be delivered soon, according to
Gus Raad, general manager and plant
superintendent. "Two are used for
flour and one for sugar. The fourth
will be for whole-wheat flour."
All bulk flour flows through
Pfening sifters while a Reimelt system handles sugar. Not only does a
Sterling Controls system automate
the handling of bulk dry and liquid ingredients, but it also controls
the minor ingredient system using
a 16-bin, automated minor ingredient batching system. Operators enter
batch weights and counts before each
run, and the system automatically
moves the holding hopper, traveling
along a track under the appropriate
ingredient bins. Loss-in-weight feeding precisely meters salt, malt, cinnamon and other ingredients into the
hopper. At the end of the cycle, the
hopper positions itself above a bin
and deposits the minor ingredients,
which are then manually carried and
emptied into the appropriate mixer.
Upon completion of minors
batching, the blend is combined with
bulk dry and liquid ingredients. The
plant relies on Champion 500-, 900and 1,500-lb mixers and one Peerless
800-lb machine for blending. The
company will soon add a fifth mixer
with a 2,000-lb capacity. "We use the
larger mixers for main line flavors
such as plain and onion bagels," Mr.
Bouchrouche said. "The 900-lb mix-

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Baking & Snack - May 2008

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