Topping it off

In a separate room, the four versatile, USDA-inspected topping lines add a variety of ingredients. “We can make almost any type of pizza you want,” Mr. Del Rio said. Although the facility creates a plethora of crusts, it also purchases several types of bread products from other wholesale bakers to accommodate its customers’ needs.

The topping lines include Quantum topping and waterfall applicators, Falco cheese shredders and Grote slicers and processing equipment. After topping, the pizzas travel through a nitrogen freezer prior to packaging. Nation partnered with Linde North America to supply the facility’s nitrogen tank farm feeding its various cryogenic tunnel and spiral freezers as well as its nitrogen gas-flushed modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) line.


For co-manufacturers, versatility in packaging is vital because of customer requests for many different sizes and formats. Mr. Nasti noted the packaging ­department houses an array of Bosch Doboy flowwrappers, a Conflex ­horizontal flowwrapper, GEA Tiromat PowerPak NT form/fill/seal wrappers and Adco cartoners.
Nation has seven packaging lines that use a variety of formats, including modified atmosphere packaging.

Packaging speeds range from extremely high speeds for the smaller items to lower speeds for the larger items. The department can also create club packs containing two family-sized pizza cartons that are shrinkwrapped before case packing.

Nation continues to search for new ways to automate production and packaging. Its biggest payback, however, comes from investing in its long-term team players who have a “heart for baking” and who are vital to the company’s future success, according to Mr. Nasti.

“The people who work with us are intelligent, motivated, hard-working and dedicated,” he noted. “They have a willingness to adapt and are not afraid to work long hours. The culture at Nation is that things are constantly changing and expectations continue to rise. Once we change or add something, we continue to look at it to determine how we can make further improvements.”