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cooler gently removes heat from the biscuits. It operates at temperatures just 5 F° cooler than the oven room and exhausts excess heat to the building’s exterior. NEW PACKAGING OPTIONS. For the time being, biscuits made on the new line move along to the packaging area also used by the hearth line. NBC took delivery on two Fuji horizontal form/fill/seal machines for the new line and is waiting for the automation package for these systems. The new wrappers can be set up for bulk or tray packs or so both styles can be run at the same time. When fully on-stream, the packaging lines will send items through the warehouse to the shipping docks. “We customize the packaging as best fits the customer’s applications,” Ms. Harrington said. The company currently offers three different packaging styles. Tray packaging employs a thin board that keeps the product properly oriented during overwrapping and distribution. This style allows one, two or three trays to be overwrapped in a single package and best suits sliced items, and orientation is important. Pillow-packing is the second method and does not require the thin board. Such packages can be cased or put into

▲ The uniform crust color of biscuits at the end of the oven reveals the consistent bake characteristics Tennessee Bun wanted from its new line at the Nashville plant. basket-like delivery trays. Bulk packing, the third style, assembles products by piece count from 108 to 240 per case and puts them into lined shipping cases. All of these packaging processes can be delivered to the customer either fresh or frozen. If frozen, the product goes to Cold Storage of Nashville, the company’s cold-storage warehouse, where it will be static-frozen. While installation and commissioning of the new biscuit line have kept NBC engineers and operators busy, the bakery also moved forward with improvements to other areas. For example, when upgrading the English muffin line, the company put new stainless steel skins on the equipment. Then it boosted the lighting in this area from 35 to 50 candlepower. The result is a much brighter work environment. Another project renovated makeup systems for the hearth bread line. It’s all according to the company’s very flexible plan. “Because we thought ahead, we could actually achieve 2013’s goals this year,” Mr. Edington said. “The plan is quite fluid.” ◾

Four in One
Privately held Tennessee Bun Company (TBC) exceeds $50 million annually in sales and consists of several related businesses. After successfully operating several McDonald’s restaurant franchises in downstate Illinois, Ms. Harrington founded the company in 1997 with a hamburger bun plant at Dickson, TN, as a single-source baker for McDonald’s. TBC became one of the first of these businesses to take on additional clients. This change, supported by McDonald’s, helped bakers fill line capacities to improve productivity and, thus, extend the cost benefits of such efficiencies to items made for the base customer, namely McDonald’s. The Dickson bakery now produces round buns, hoagies, cluster buns and double-decker buns using sponge-and-dough methods for its 3,000-lb doughs. It bakes with a conveyorized proofing and baking system. In 1999, the company added Nashville Bun Company to handle overflow packaging needs. It now houses three production lines: English muffins, hearth buns and rolls (added in 2005) and, most recently, biscuits. Because of the flexibility of its lines, this location acts as the engine of innovation for the whole company. Also in Nashville and founded in 2007, CornerStone Baking Company is co-located with Cold Storage of Nashville (CSN), established in 2005. The bakery produces frozen yeast-raised dough pieces, primarily for food service clients. CSN operates as a third-party refrigerated warehouse and distribution center specializing in food-grade products.

BAKING & SNACK / September 2011

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Baking&Snack - September 2011

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