By: Justin Uhrig
Aspire Bakeries’ La Brea Bakery sees a demand in the Take & Bake line that creates urgency for automation in the production lines.
“Baking is an art and a science; it’s not one or the other,” says Bakery Director for La Brea Bakery’s Facility in Van Nuys, Marcus Garcia.
La Brea Bakery is an artisanal bakery that produces a variety of artisanal breads and gluten-free breads with long fermenting times to ensure quality breads are produced.
The Take & Bake line is prepackaged breads that are available to purchase to bring home to bake for hot, fresh breads with instructions on how to bake on the package.
The bakery in Van Nuys, is 130,000 square feet and has 3 production lines for different uses: line 1 is for the long fermenting time breads, lines 2 and 3 are for the Take and Bake line. The bakery currently has 277 people employed, and with the increase in demand, it installed a new automated packaging line for the Take and Bake line.
Before the installation of the new automated packaging line, the Take & Bake products in the packaging process would often be sent back though the line to be completed when time was available.
“Prior to automation, this WIP was typically processed at an overtime rate. With the automation and the streamlined process, we have eliminated the overtime,” says Garcia.
La Brea Bakery also installed a new Ilapak Delta overwrap machine and moved the current machine with the transfer conveyors to production lines 2 and 3 to increase flexibility to increase volume due to the demand in the Take & Bake line.
“The new equipment has given the bakery the opportunity to simplify and streamline our labor as a result of eliminating the WIP,” says Garcia.
La Brea Bakery is continuing to investigate investing in machinery to become for efficient and improve quality, while trying to keep the traditional artisanal quality breads by using the same artisanal techniques from the original recipes.
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