Baking & Snack - August 2017 - 44

OTIS SPUNKMEYER

Top: Otis Spunkmeyer
cookies are individually
wrapped for grab-andgo convenience.
Bottom: Display
cartons hold eight
wrapped cookies.

each morning reviewing the prior day's production before any foods leave the bakery.

Quest for the perfect cookie
It could be said that the world is divided into two kinds
of people: "crisp cookie" types and "soft cookie" types.
Leave it to the brand that's only for everyone to find
the middle ground. Otis Spunkmeyer cookies are made
with crisp, golden-brown edges and a soft, chewy center.
According to Mr. Mina, that's not by accident.
After ingredients are individually scaled and mixed in
a 2,000-lb Champion mixer, dough is dropped into a bay
for a resting period that varies according to the type of
cookie being produced. During Baking & Snack's visit,
the bakery was making 4-oz chocolate chunk cookies,
which are part of its new Grab-N-Go portfolio for cstore distribution.
From here on, production is all sensor-driven, set by
the three Allen-Bradley control stations. Dough waits in
the hopper while the sensor reads the levels to ensure it's
metered correctly before chunking. "The key to consistency is how full the hoppers are," Mr. Mina said.
Following wirecutting, the dough pieces travel to the
150-ft tunnel oven, which initiates the quest for that
perfect cookie. "It's all driven by temperature and time,"
Mr. Mina said, noting that the Otis Spunkmeyer cookies
bake in three different zones for a total of 9 to 16 minutes, depending on the size. After cookies exit the third
zone, time and temperature remain at play during the
carefully executed cooling process, also done in stages.
To prepare for proper freezing and ensure product
integrity, the temperature must be reduced gradually.
Specifically, as the cookies leave the oven, exhaust hoods
above the 48-in.-wide conveyor belt extract heat from
the foods to aid in the ambient cooling process. The
hoods pull the heat up and out of the building.
The U-shaped line curves around and continues the
cookies on a cooling path toward the tunnel freezer.
"We have a nice, long ambient cool so we can get that
temperature down slowly," Mr. Mina said. The cooling
process takes just about as long as the bake, up to 14
minutes, all of which can be adjusted depending on the
outcome of those quality checks, which are done prior
to packaging.
At the final stage of cooling and freezing, cookies run
through 24, 4-ft-wide chambers, gradually reducing the
temperature in each one so as not to shock the food or
create unnecessary moisture.
This careful baking, cooling and freezing process is designed to be as kind to the food as possible to maintain
product integrity. In fact, the cookies are not completely frozen - it's more of a "firming" process - as the Fahrenheit
temperature never really gets below the mid-30s.

44 Baking & Snack August 2017 / www.bakingandsnack.com

Next, the cookies are lined up with a squaring bar and
individually go through Safeline metal detection before
entering the packaging department, where ARYZTA has
invested in developing a specific process to streamline
Otis Spunkmeyer production and avoid bottlenecks.

New horizons in packaging
With demand on the rise for convenience items, innovation can be seen in the packaging area, especially
for those single-serve, 4-oz cookies staking their claim
in the c-stores. "We designed multiple avenues that
can be used across a number of packaging, whether it's
clamshell, individually wrapped or bulk packaging,"

http://www.bakingandsnack.com

Baking & Snack - August 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - August 2017