at fresh start’s - berkshire partners · for a little more than six months before the roll’s...

Year after year, Mike Ward’sjob involved setting the stan-dard for producing hamburg-er buns across the world for

the nation’s largest restaurant chain. Overtime, the lead baker at Fresh StartBakeries has gotten pretty good at it. Heshould be, since he’s been perfecting theproduction of hamburger buns for nearlya half a century.

Ward’s workday routine took a dra-matic change last year when McDonald’sCorp. rolled out its new premium chickensandwiches served on a honey wheat roll.Producing the hard roll involves newequipment, different processes, a morecomplex formulation and an entirely sep-arate set of specifications as to whatmakes up the perfect product.

“That was probably the biggest changeat McDonald’s during my lifetime,” saysWard, Fresh Start’s senior vice presidentand chief manufacturing officer.

At Fresh Start’sStockton, Calif., facility,the goal is not to strivefor perfection, but toattain it time after time.

By Dan Malovany

Model ofConsistency

Model ofConsistency

2 0 0 6 E X E C U T I V E T E A M O F T H E Y E A R

2006anagementTeam of the Year

Scott Parker, general manager,and Brent Minardi, plant

manager, oversee operations atFresh Start’s plant in Stockton,

Calif., where it can producehamburger buns, honey wheat

rolls and English muffins.Pho

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FEBRUARY 2006 - Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery 1

For a little more than six months beforethe roll’s debut last June, McDonald’s andits bakery suppliers met to define the prod-uct’s baking characteristics, physical attrib-utes and process. About a month beforethe rollout, the company installed newmakeup equipment, and began makingadjustments to the bun line in its Stockton,Calif., plant to accommodate production ofthe new product, notes Scott Parker, gener-al manager for the facility.

Today, the 71,000-sq.-ft. bakery pro-duces premium chicken rolls for 1,500stores throughout California as well asunits in Hawaii and the Pacific Rim.Additionally, Fresh Start provides ham-burger buns for more than 500 restau-rants in its northern California market,which includes parts of western Nevada.

Maximizing SpaceBuilt in 1987, the Stockton plant operatesthree shifts, six days a week. The mainline is actually a combination bun andhard roll operation, with separate makeupsystems alternately feeding into a commonproofer and oven. The plant also has thecapacity to produce English muffins on asecond line. Space throughout the plant,however, is pretty tight, so Fresh Startmakes the most out of its footprint byusing vertical hoppers, ceiling-mountedconveyors and other systems.

“We try to maximize the use of cubicfootage in the facility as best as possible,”Parker says.

Each week, the bakery uses about400,000 lb. of flour, which are stored intwo 110,000-lb. silos. Bulk shortening and

high-fructose corn syrup are stored in60,000-lb. tanks, while 25,000-lb. batchesof cream yeast are stored in a separate sys-tem. Fresh Start plans to install a bag dumphandling system that will vacuum transferminor and micro ingredients directly intothe mixer. Currently, for some products,those ingredients are scaled by hand.

For bun production, Fresh Start uses aliquid sponge system. Flour, water, yeastand shortening are added to a sponge settank, then pumped into a fermentationtank for a fixed period of time beforepassing through a heat exchanger thatcools down the batch before it’s pumpedinto a holding tank. Honey wheat rollsuse a different process.

“We have to be a little more carefulwith producing the premium chicken

Company: Fresh Start BakeriesPlant location: Stockton, Calif.Size: 71,000 sq. ft.Products: Hamburger buns, honey wheat rolls,English muffins.Market: Northern California for buns. All ofCalifornia, Hawaii and Pacific Rim for honeywheat rolls.No. of lines: Two. Combination hamburger bunand hard roll line. English muffin line.No. of Employees: 67

Key Personnel:General Mgr.: Scott ParkerPlant Mgr.: Brent MinardiChief Engineer: John SlaterQA/Customer Service Manager: Virginia Taylor

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After mixing the doughon the honey wheat rollline, an eight-pocketdivider cranks out 1,700dozen pieces an hour.

Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery - FEBRUARY 2006

rolls,” Parker notes. “That process is a lit-tle trickier to handle and has less toler-ance than the process for our buns.”

Both bun and hard roll doughs aremixed in a 2,000-lb. horizontal mixer. Forthe premium chicken roll makeup, thedough is dumped into a trough that’s auto-matically elevated to the divider’s hopper.The eight-pocket, European-style dividercuts, rounds and moulds the dough pieces,which are allowed a short rest before beingplaced on an extra-large pan. Generally,the hard roll makeup line produces up to1,700 dozen rolls per hour.

The separate bun makeup system,however, can produce 3,000 to 3,300dozen pieces an hour, depending on thesize of the product. After mixing, thebun dough flows through a doughpump, which also degasses and furtherdevelops it. The dough enters a six-pocket extrusion divider and passesalong a bar moulder before being flourdusted and receiving a 45-second inter-mediate proof.

Once relaxed, the dough pieces passthrough a series of sheeter rollers that flat-ten them into round patties for makinghamburger buns. A flour reclamation sys-

tem vacuums up excess flour from thepans prior to proofing.

In general, all products receive a con-sistent proof time at about 110°F andabout 70-75% relative humidity. Onceproofed, buns may be topped with sesameseeds by a new system that uses program-mable controls and photo sensors to accu-rately place the seeds on each bun, mini-mize waste and eliminate unnecessarycleanup, Parker explains. At this point,hard rolls are automatically scored priorto baking.

Protecting Product IntegrityAfter going under a blow-off station thatloosens the buns from the pans for auto-

matic depanning,product travelsalong a ceiling-mounted coolerfor 20 minutes,through metaldetection and intoa six-lane feeder toone of twoslicer/bulk packers.If there’s a jam inpackaging, prod-uct can be divertedto an accumulator,which can holdabout four min-utes worth of pro-

duction from its high-speed line.Following slicing, product is bulk-

packed including a 6-in wide, colored plas-tic strip that helps the distributor knowwhat type of buns are in the package. Forexample, a red strip indicates that thepackage contains rolls, while a lack of astrip signifies regular hamburger buns.

Just prior to the heat-sealing process, airis vacuumed out to help extend shelf lifeand protect product integrity. A center heatseal down the center of the 24-pack allowsfoodservice operators to use only 12 bunsat a time, thus extending freshness to thelast possible moment, Parker explains.

Stacks of buns are rolled to the facili-ty’s ammonia-chilled freezer, which canhold about 1,200 stacks or 120,000 piecesof product. Freezing the product allowsthe bakery to have longer runs on someproducts, thus eliminating the number ofchangeovers and improving plant efficien-cy. Fresh Start then shuttles products viatractor trailer to a McDonald’s distributorlocated about five miles from the bakeryfor further distribution.

To ensure product quality and foodsafety, Fresh Start has had a hazardousanalysis critical control point (HACCP)program in place for about a decade,notes Brent Minardi, plant manager.Every hour, for instance, the foremantakes products as they’re leaving the ovenand logs their internal temperature, seed-



An automatic system perfectlyscores dough pieces on the

honey wheat roll line.

The red strip of plastic tells distributors that the package contains honey wheatrolls. Here, the air is vacuumed out of the package prior to heat sealing. A centerheat seal allows restaurants to open 12 buns at a time, ensuring greater freshness.

FEBRUARY 2006 - Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery 3

ing, shape, height, color and other para-meters as a part of its statistical processcontrol (SPC) system. The plant’s qualityassurance manager also monitors prod-ucts, swabs the bakery for microbialanalysis, and sends out incoming ingredi-ents to an outside lab for monthly testing.

Moreover, prior to entering the cooler,random buns and rolls pass under a prod-uct evaluation system that snaps an imageof the product and compares the productcolor, shape and size to parameters alreadyprogrammed into the computer. Fresh Startis looking to install an upgraded monitor-ing system with an automatic productrejector as well, Parker says.

A second monitoring system is locatedin the packaging area where operators takesliced products and run them under thesystem on an hourly basis. Here, operatorsmeasure not only the product’s shape andcolor, but also the dimensions of the heeland the crown to make sure they’re withinpredetermined specifications.

“These systems have been a big addi-tion to the facility, even though they’vebeen here for more than five years,”Parker notes. “They allow us to monitorall physical attributes of the bun.”

To monitor plant efficiency, theStockton plant is linked to a central data-base that tracks all ingredients and fin-ished goods. It also has a completeaccounting system that monitors payables,receivables and other financial and admin-istrative functions. Reports are sent to theBrea, Calif., headquarters on a weeklybasis. Fresh Start also has a computerizedpreventive maintenance system that tracksparts and automatically generates workorders for equipment.

Future ImprovementsTo improve production, the bakery also isreplacing the heat exchangers in its fer-ment system with higher capacity onesthat will transfer the sponge more quicklyand with lower pounds-per-square-inch.That will cause a lot less stress and willimprove the quality of the final product.

The bakery may also start looking toautomate the stacking and un-stacking of

Dough Doctor on CallIf the bun has lost its golden glow or the English muffin isn’t toasting right, Fresh Start calls on theDough Doctor to nurse everything back to health. That was the nickname given to Mike Ward back in1997, when he visited Hong Kong working to standardize the production of buns at a new plant, and itstuck with him ever since.

As senior vice president and chief manufacturing officer, Ward serves as the manufacturing expert inFresh Start’s three-member Office of the President. In 1958, he began baking buns and other products ata wholesale bakery. Nine years later, Harold Freund in California hired him to bake hamburger buns forMcDonald’s.

“I took the challengeand never regretted it,”Ward says. “I have 47years of baking experi-ence, mostly bun bak-ing.”

Over the years, Wardhas traveled the worldwith his wife, setting upFresh Start bakeriesthroughout Europe andworking with its partnersin Central America,South America and

Australia to ensure that the products produced in Malmo, Sweden, and Duisburg, Germany, taste thesame as those baked in Juiz de Fora, Brazil and Melbourne, Australia.

Moreover, McDonald’s has sent the Dough Doctor as a consultant to standardize operations inVenezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Moscow and Singapore, just to name a few.

“Going into new countries is tough work, but we always met the challenge no matter what our cus-tomers asked us to do,” Ward says. “We have to work with language barriers, understanding culture dif-ferences and different standards for food safety, sanitation and so on. Ingredient differences always makeit tough. Equipment differences are a challenge, but we’ve worked really hard and made sacrifices to getthings done for them.”

In addition to standardizing bun production, Ward had to work on a variety of different products. InSouth America, for instance, Fresh Start and its partners are leading suppliers of ice cream cones, spe-cialty cakes and other local products for both its core restaurant customers and others as well. In mostcases, Fresh Start sends new managers from its international plants to its U.S. operations to familiarizethem with its operational practices and expose them to the company’s values and culture.

As it diversifies its business, Fresh Start is hiring regional food scientists to spearhead new productdevelopment. For example, it recently hired Jeanny Zimeri, a former food scientist at Kraft’s Nabisco oper-ation, to head up product development at Fresh Start’s venture in Guatemala.

In the United States, the Dough Doctor has helped improved the shelf life and softness of hamburgerbuns, and reformulated the English muffin to enhance its flavor, refine its shape and eliminate excesscornmeal that can make a mess on a drive-thru diner’s lap.

“Over the years, we helped established the target for the world’s production of McDonald’s bun prod-ucts. We kind of helped write the book on these products,” Ward says.

Working with McDonald’s has made Fresh Start a better baking company, he adds.“McDonald’s has been a good partner. They’ve helped us set and strive for higher standards,” he

notes. “It’s been a two-way street all the way on that. We’re both looking for excellence.”



To ensure qualityand consistency atthe Stockton plant,the product evalua-tion system snapsimages of randomproducts and com-pares their color,size and shape toparameters alreadyprogrammed intothe computer.

Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery - FEBRUARY 2006

its new honey wheat roll pans, which aretoo large for its existing system. Currently,pans have to be manually loaded andunloaded onto conveyors.

Many ongoing improvements, Parkersays, will come from the bakery’s“opportunity for improvement” (OFI)system. Specifically, that’s a terminal inthe break room where employees cansuggest ways to improve the plant’s oper-ations. The OFI team then reviews ideason a monthly basis. If it elects to imple-ment them, employees are awardedprizes or gift certificates.

It’s just another way in which theStockton plant improves on its model ofconsistency. SF&WB



Honey wheat rolls pass through metal detection at the Stockton plant.

Reprinted with permission from Snack Food and Wholesale Bakery February 2006

at fresh start’s - berkshire partners · for a little more than six months before the roll’s...

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