Baking & Snack - December 2018 - 29

OPERATIONS
New Horizons Baking Co.

New Horizons Baking Co. perfects the art of producing more with fewer SKUs.
by Joanie Spencer
In the beginning, there was a bun line. That was in 1967 at
New Horizons' headquarters in Norwalk, OH. Back then,
the company was all about saying yes and being the best.
A self-professed "baker's baker," New Horizons specialized in contract manufacturing for foodservice accounts
and branded products. "We've never had our own label,"
said Trina Bediako, New Horizons president and COO.
"We never wanted to compete with our retail customers."
The bun line has been operating almost as long as the
building itself, according to Ms. Bediako. "We're still improving on it; the line was totally redone in 2011," she said.
"Continuous improvement is paramount to our success."
During its more than half a century in business, the
bakery has not only significantly grown its physical space,
but it has also streamlined the business and become one
of McDonald's largest producers of buns and English muffins, servicing restaurants east of the Mississippi River.
As with most things in life, the New Horizons journey to
success was just as important as the destination itself.
The business was built on custom orders and its ability to
nimbly produce and package any baked good a customer
could dream up. "A customer would call, and we'd just say
yes," recalled Ms. Bediako, whose father Tim Brown, with
more than 50 years in the baking business and the former
Continental Baking Co., has been the CEO for 23 years.
As the business grew, New Horizons was able to identify its core strengths and capitalize on them. To keep its
commitment to the McDonald's system and provide quality product supply, New Horizons has made some serious
strategic moves to streamline its production and increase
capacity in its plants in Fremont, IN, and Toledo, OH, in
addition to the flagship location in Norwalk.
"Each customer brings new challenges and requirements, but that keeps us focused and sharp along the way,"
Ms. Bediako said. "As a result, ultimately, all parties benefit."

In addition to the high-speed bun line, the Norwalk
plant runs four English muffin lines and one bun line,
while the Fremont facility houses two muffin lines and a
hybrid bun-bagel line, and the Toledo operation, which
New Horizons acquired only a few years ago, has capacity
for three production lines.
However, adding space isn't always the answer to increasing capacity. Sometimes it takes a more calculated
approach or even a full paradigm shift. Being a "baker's
baker" requires agility, but increased flexibility can come
at the cost of efficiency. "We had to step back and look
at our business and think strategically which direction we
wanted to go," Ms. Bediako explained. "We chose to focus
on efficiency and optimize our day-to-day operations."
New Horizons was able to streamline operations and
gain capacity through strategic optimization; the bakery
made a very difficult but tactical decision to move away
from producing a plethora of products that had become
so varied that basic changeovers were taking hours on end
several times a week.
Streamlining changed all that. The bakery went from
more than 100 SKUs to about 20 and, in the process,
significantly reduced its changeover time.
"As orders come in, we've got to know the time we need
and the capacity we have available at any given time to
support those orders," Ms. Bediako said. "It's very different from where we were years ago. We have to look at the
whole picture now; it's a different view. All our customers
have been very important to us, but at the end of the day,
we have to do what's right not only for our customers but
also for the 500 employees who are relying on us to make
the right decisions every day."
Today, third-party production remains a part of the
business, but the primary focus is on like products and
long runs.

Strategy in optimization

Muffins, muffins, muffins

When a bakery finds itself at capacity, various solutions
are available, whether it's expanding the line - or even
the physical space - or strategic restructuring from the
outside in. New Horizons did both.
At Norwalk, it started out on a large plot of land, which
provided ample room for growth when the bakery found
itself out of capacity. What used to be called the "back 40"
- as in the 40 acres surrounding the facility - is now
jokingly called the "back 10," thanks to so much expansion of the building.

Much of New Horizons' increased business came in the
form of English muffin production, prompting the company to expand the Norwalk plant by 5,500 sq ft to make
room for a fourth muffin line, bringing the company to
six total English muffin production lines in all three facilities. In all, New Horizons produces about 2 million
English muffins per line each day.
On the new line at Norwalk, English muffins begin
with a base that's loaded into a 1,600-lb Shaffer, a Bundy
Baking Solution, mixer that makes about 1,800 doz muf-

(From left) Melissa
Williams, sales manager;
Trina Badiako, president
and COO; Rob Harrison,
director of operations;
and Gabe Badiako, customer relations manager,
make up the winning
New Horizons team.
Ms. Badiako's and Ms.
Williams' father has been
CEO of this family-owned
company for more than
two decades.
Photography by Barney Taxel

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