Baking & Snack - September 2015 - 50

ABIMAR FOODS

ect where the suppliers had such a good relationship,"
Mr. Velasquez said. "They communicated with one another and would fix things even before we could point
them out."

A dozen hours for production
Overall, the facility allots 65,450 sq ft for production,
40,000 sq ft for packaging, 36,000 sq ft for warehousing
and 17,000 sq ft for maintenance, sanitation, QA and
other offices. Currently, production runs on staggered
shifts for 40 hours, four days a week. Because of the long
fermentation process, Mr. Velasquez said, total production - from mixing to packaging - can take up to 12
hours on some varieties with mixing beginning in the
middle of the night.
The bakery uses a state-of-the-art, fully automated dry
bulk ingredient storage and handling system from Shick
Solutions. Minor and micro ingredients are prescaled into
batches in a separate room from the mixers that was specifically designed to promote good manufacturing practices in food safety and sanitation and product quality.
Sponges and doughs are made in a temperaturecontrolled environment that is continuously monitored.
Additionally, the room was engineered to incorporate
sanitary and ergonomic design to allow for a clean and
extremely efficient continuous operation. Sponges made
in a Shaffer mixer are transported in troughs to the fermentation room for varying periods of time, depending
on the product.
To make doughs, flour and other ingredients are added
to the sponge and processed using a Thomas L. Green
vertical spindle mixer. After the second stage of mixing,
the doughs receive additional fermentation time.
"Everything before lamination is key to a cracker
production," Mr. Heiser noted. "When the mixing and

50 Baking & Snack September 2015 / www.bakingandsnack.com

AbiMar's new cracker plant houses one high-speed line and has room for
future expansion.
fermentation is working well, normally the lamination
is working well."
Troughs travel from the fermentation room to the
makeup and lamination department, which is temperaturecontrolled. The dough travels on a Reading Bakery Systems
makeup line through multiple rollers to create a sheet.
A cut-sheet laminator slices the sheet into large squares.
Afterward, the group of stacked sheets passes under a series
of size reduction stations that gradually reduce the dough
in stages to the proper thickness.
In a separate room, the dough sheet bakes on a steel
mesh-weave band in a Reading Bakery Systems directfired oven. After baking, a break roller fractions them
into organized lines.
After passing through a second break roller, crackers are
organized into single lines to enter one of several packaging systems. The multiple arms allow AbiMar to package
different sizes and formats simultaneously. Benchmark
Automation provided a turnkey system that includes a
partnership with Formost Fuji, Propack, Kliklok, Wexxar
and Belcor.
Looking back on the project, Mr. Heiser learned a lot
about documenting success, keeping an open mind to
new concepts and developing a platform that will help the
next project go even more smoothly. He also cannot help
but think about Mr. Fehr, who with his wife, Vicki, passed
away in a tragic accident in July. Although it provides only
a little bit of solace, Mr. Heiser noted Mr. Fehr had attended
the bakery's grand opening in April and seemed genuinely
pleased about what had been accomplished.
"Steve Fehr had an aggressive vision for the company," he
said. "And it came to fruition."

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Baking & Snack - September 2015

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