Branching into cookies

Currently, all products are sold directly to customers or through a select number of foodservice and bakery distributors.

The bakery recently acquired a used production line that will soon be baking traditional, upscale all-butter cookies using the family’s European-inspired formulas. The production line includes dozens of die cutters, as well as wirecut capabilities, to produce a variety of seasonal and holiday cookies that will be sold either packaged for retail under the Servatii or private label brand names or in a bulk format. “We hadn’t planned on making cookies in this facility,” Mr. Gottenbusch said. “But the production line became available, and there is a need in the market for these types of premium products.”

Looking into the future, he added that the bakery will continue to automate, possibly installing a separate pretzel bite line in the short run and even a bulk ingredient handling system in the long term.

For now, however, Mr. Gottenbusch is concentrating on the business at hand. “Throughout my life, I’ve always looked for something bigger to accomplish — a yearning to do something more,” he said. “My wife said to me a couple a months ago, ‘You always said you had something to accomplish, but you were never sure what it was. So is this finally what you needed to do or is there something else?’

“I thought about it for a second and said, ‘I think I have enough on my plate for now.’ ”