Baking & Snack - April 2018 - 45

Production starts with Shick Esteve bulk ingredient
handling system that features a 103,000-lb flour silo.
"We selected Shick because we were familiar with them
from SNAC International, and again, they could do it
in the shortest amount of time," Mr. Schaum said.
All allergens are stored separately from other ingredients. Oil, malt and peanut butter come in totes. On the
GES peanut butter system in the separate temperaturecontrolled wet ingredient room, a lift carries the 1,700-lb
sack peanut butter over the system. Here, an operator attaches an "elephant trunk" - it's called that because the
lanky tube looks like one - before releasing the flow of
peanut butter into a vat below. One peanut butter tote
feeds the clean-in-place system for about 1 hour, 40 minutes. "When I did it the first time, we had 30 people watching with their phones in their hands waiting for me to be
coated in peanut butter," Mr. Schaum said. "Fortunately, it
didn't happen."
Before entering the pretzel makeup and oven area,
everyone must first wash their hands in a Meritec hand
sanitizing system and step into a shoe sanitizer as part
of plant's strict food safety protocol procedures. In the
next room, a Shaffer 680-lb horizontal mixer creates
380-lb batches of dough. It's a much smaller batch than
the mixer's rated size because of the stiffness of the lowmoisture dough.
After mixing, a loaf maker portions the dough into
5-lb loaves that slide up to an elevated belt shuttle that
feeds five extrusion machines to provide continuous
production on the RBS makeup line.
Next, the dough enters a double extrusion system
while a pressure pump injects the filling into a dough
that's sealed to create tubes, or what Mr. Schaum called
"garden hoses." In all, the 82-in.-wide belt carries 55
rows of peanut butter-filled tubes to a guillotine that
chops them into nugget-sized pieces.
After receiving a steaming caustic bath to ultimately
create the pretzel-textured skin, the pieces are salted on
an independent belt, then loaded into an RBS 104-ft.,
single-loop convection oven. A double herringbone-style
belt transports the pieces through the three-zone oven
for about eight minutes to set their color and shape. After
baking, an 80-ft. two-zone kiln located underneath the
oven dries and sets the finished moisture of the nuggets.
To continuously clean the belt and prevent flashing,
the oven features a burn-off section that incinerates everything from dough remnants to peanut butter residue,
which are brushed off into a separate pan and safely
removed on a regular basis.
To ensure product safety, Pretzels, Inc., relied on a
Top: Peanut butter-filled pretzels tumble out of the 104-ft single-loop oven down
to the kiln where they dry before cooling and packaging.

Sharing nuggets of wisdom
During Baking & Snack's visit to Pretzels, Inc.'s
Plymouth, IN, facility, COO Paul Schaum pointed
out dozens of ways the management team
worked with The Austin Co. and equipment suppliers to create an "intelligently designed" operation. "When we put it together, we designed
it to be the most modern snack food plant in the
US," he said.
But creating a smart operation took a lot
more. Even before production began, Pretzels,
Inc., spent more than two months hiring and
training its staff on SQF protocol, workplace
safety and proper processing procedures.
For continuous improvement, Mr. Schaum
noted the plant relies on an employee engagement model where line personnel provide feedback to their supervisors to "teach" the equipment to operate more efficiently with them.
Moreover, Pretzels, Inc., integrated the entire
line into its ERP and other data management
systems to give the operations team further insights as to how the equipment is functioning.
As a result, Mr. Schaum pointed out, communication goes in multiple ways when it comes to
running a better snack facility.
"Every piece of equipment is linked and tells
us every hour what we're producing," he observed. "We can also take scans from the last
hour of production and ensure efficiencies as
good as the previous ones."
Additionally, vendors often remotely conduct
various diagnostics to enhance their equipment's performance. Specifically, such systems
allow for proactive monitoring to reduce any
unplanned downtime.

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Baking & Snack - April 2018

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