Baking & Snack - November 2008 - 39

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product introductions and retail price increases should
offset the year's economic downturn.
The bakery produces more than 100 SKUs with many
daily changeovers. Products include eight varieties of
bread, three buns, two types of yeast-raised donuts,
five cookies, several quick breads, muffins, cake and
old-fashioned donuts, pastries such as long johns, Persians (honey buns) and Danishes, and bagels. The plant
also produces brownies, pumpkin bars, carrot cake and
cinnamon rolls.
Currently, bread and buns run on the same line. The
expansion will include a dedicated bread line adjacent
to the current line so the plant can produce bread and
buns simultaneously. With a secondary goal of reducing
human contact of the dough, the semiautomated line will
be renovated to full automation.
"Our immediate problem is the bottleneck in packaging," Mr. Ingle said. "Kwik Trip invested more than $115
million in capital expenditures this year - the most
invested in a single year by the company." Of that, more
than $1.5 million was earmarked for the bakery to
procure packaging equipment to alleviate bottlenecks.
"We recently installed a new Rademaker impingement
oven that increased throughput beyond the capability of packaging," he added. "It's a real workhorse. For
some cookie products, what we bake in three hours could
take nine hours to pack off. At times, we need to rack off
products and pack them later when the line is running
a different item or is shut down. We have some robotics planned for the interim that will get us by until the
expansion is complete."
ORGANIZED CHAOS. The plant has four basic production lines: bread/bun, yeast-raised donuts, a Danish line
and one for cookies and muffins. Three isolated rack
ovens bake limited runs of bagels. "Every line is very flex-

Give-Back
Don Zietlow, president, Kwik Trip, La Crosse, WI,
firmly believes in empowering and rewarding its
company's employees. By creating semiautonomous leadership positions, he allows people to not
only bring fresh ideas but also keep the company
innovative and fresh in its thinking.
"Each division is its own profit center and
somewhat autonomous but also takes advantage of many synergies and cooperation as
well," said Doug Ingle, director of bakery operations. "Direction is given, then they step back
and let you run it. We do the same at each level
of the bakery. We're not micromanagers, and
we don't give a lot of specific direction. Rather,
we provide empowerment and tools to get
the job done, but it is up to the manager to

BAKING & SNACK / November 2008

ᮡ Pans of bun dough are manually loaded onto racks hung from a monorail
system and transferred into the 5-door flow-through proofer.
ible, with many components on wheels to roll in and out,
depending on needs and product," Mr. Ingle noted.
The plant receives three to four loads of flour each week
and has two flour silos, located on opposite ends of the
plant to accommodate the locations of the bread/bun and
cookie/muffin mixing areas. Supplied by Shick USA, the
systems incorporate automated ingredient handling to deliver flour to Topos Mondial 1,600- and 800-lb refurbished
mixers. At present, flour and water are the only two automated ingredients. "We plan to add liquid sugar silos as
part of the expansion," Mr. Ingle said.
Topos was instrumental to the plant as it expanded,
supplying refurbished and new equipment. "We always
look to them when refurbished equipment is needed such
as the Moline makeup line for the cinnamon rolls and
Persians." Kwik Trip uses one of the supplier's rotary bowl
mixers for this process.

determine the path to completion.
"Don is a down-to-earth owner who believes in
giving back to his employees," he continued. "A huge
incentive he offers is giving 40% of the company's net
income back to employees in the form of profit sharing. I don't know any company that even comes close
to that number."
Another unique program kicks in for employees
when they pass their 5-year anniversary with Kwik
Trip. Called Convenience Store Investments (CSI), the
employees own the property of each of the C-stores,
and Kwik Trip, Inc., own the business. "So as mortgages
are paid off on each store, the family pays a 'rent'
equal to the mortgage into an employee-owned
investment plan. It acts as a retirement fund for
long-term employees," Mr. Ingle said.

Baking & Snack - November 2008

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