Starting up a new plant, especially one with several lines, requires a ton of preparation and planning, especially one the size of G&S Foods new operation in Hanover, Pa.

The co-packer and private label producer last fall opened its 350,000-square-foot greenfield facility that’s part snack and part confectionery with almost a dozen state-of-the-art salted snack and enrobing production lines and room for more.

The operation cranks out not only conventional salted snacks but also sweet-and-salty treats such as enrobed pretzels as well as a litany of better-for-you (BFY) snacks that are expected to drive the industry’s growth for years to come.

During the initial startup last summer, G&S Foods took the plant “out for a spin” to ensure its new infrastructure, processing lines and operating systems functioned as anticipated before closing its Abbottstown facility and adding more packaging capabilities, noted Dan Morgan, president and chief executive officer. 

“We have left room in production and packaging for automation when we’re ready,” he said. “Being a co-manufacturer, we don’t want to automate until we know exactly what we need. We know it’s coming. That’s why we built a plant that’s nimble and can pivot when needed.”

Currently, about 400 people work on three shifts, five days a week, but the company has already installed 900 lockers, which Morgan described as a sign of the company’s commitment to double the size of the business over the next five years.

Wade Fitzkee, vice president of operations, recalled how he relied on the combined experience of the owners and management team with his 40-plus years of experience in the snack industry to guide the well-planned design and detailed construction of the new facility.

Production flows from incoming raw materials at one end to warehousing for finished products at the other. About 60% of the facility is dedicated to production while 40% is for warehousing.

Fitzkee pointed out the facility’s key features, such as its 30- to 40-foot-high ceilings that eliminate height restrictions on equipment and enable the operation to take advantage of vertical space by adding mezzanines for scaling and packaging snacks. In the middle of the plant, windowed production offices allow managers to observe the operation in real time.

Multiple washing stations were built near different pro-duction lines to facilitate sanitation and minimize changeover time.

The R&D department is also located in the center of the operation to allow for confidential makeup of products, a kitchen and lab, and mockups and meetings in an adjacent conference room.

“Our customers can come in to work with us to develop and test their sample products,” he said. “We also have a corridor that runs through the facility where customers can see the snacks in operation from windows lining the corridor.”

In the snack area, two 70,000-lb flour silos feed the Schenck Process bulk ingredient handling system while other ingredients come bagged or in multiple tote systems. During Baking & Snack’s visit in October, the company was installing an APEC micro ingredient handling system for BFY and other new snacks with multiple ingredients that require exact specifications.

“Many of the new protein snacks are more than just flour, salt and water,” Fitzkee said. “We’re setting up a system for quality control that can dispense not just more traditional snacks, but also more complex ones on our high-volume lines. We don’t have to worry as much about the quality, food safety and accuracy of these micro ingredients that you might if someone were manually adding them to the batch.”

Currently, the snack area houses more than a half dozen production lines for conventional snacks. Fitzkee noted a recently purchased Wenger twin-screw extruder will handle more difficult-to-process heavier grains and protein ingredients under greater pressure to create more innovative snacks with healthy ingredients.

One of the new lines from Reading Bakery Systems (RBS) turns out thousands of mini pretzels a minute. After passing through the Exact Mixing continuous mixer, the pretzel dough travels to a low-pressure extruder for forming before receiving a caustic bath and baking in an RBS two-pass tunnel oven. Fitzkee said the pretzels initially bake on the oven’s band at a higher temperature to remove moisture before traveling back on a kiln pass underneath at a lower temperature and a longer time to establish the product’s crisp texture. The pretzels next are bulk-packed, but more packaging options will be available in the near future.

On the puffed snack line, operators manually add 50-lb bags of corn to the vertical mixer, which hydrates it before an operator checks the batter for moisture. The line also has a Ross high-shear mixer for incorporating dry ingredients from proprietary formulas.

The mixture travels through an auger into an extruder and a die that applies pressure to form a string of dough that’s cut into pieces. It then heads into a Lanly industrial dryer and PPM Technologies seasoning equipment that coats the snacks with cheese seasoning and salt.

Afterward, the orange puffcorns travel up a Layton bucket elevator and onto PPM conveyors to a mezzanine of Yamato scales and vertical form/fill/seal baggers below that can crank out hundreds of either single- or family-packs, or a combination of both, each minute.

Most of the operation, except for the oven rooms, is temperature-controlled not only for employee comfort but also to ensure quality control. That’s especially critical in the coating department where an en-closed room that’s set at more than 100°F houses five Feldmeier, 75,000-lb bulk tanks, with space to add two more.

Fitzkee said the warm temperature helps keep the coatings flowing through the jacketed piping. The tanks also agitate the coatings for several minutes on a regular basis to maintain consistency.

In all, G&S Foods can offer more than a dozen varieties of flavored coatings that are stored in totes for limited-time offerings and seasonal snacks.

The adjacent, air-conditioned coating department houses five Aasted enrobers and cooling tunnels with infrastructure in place to add three more lines. After cooling, enrobed products are weighed and dropped into Pacraft (formerly Toyo Jidoki) stand-up pouches or Matrix packaging machines before case pack-ing, palletizing and storing in a first-in, first-out warehouse.

Morgan pointed out that packaging innovations in recent years allow snack companies to merchandise their products beyond the traditional snack aisle in delis, produce sections and special displays throughout retail stores.

The facility is designed with food safety in mind with kosher certifications as well as Non-GMO Project verified, Certified Gluten Free, USDA Organic, SQF Level 2 and other accreditations. Fitzkee noted all products are tested for quality assurance, so they meet customers’ specifications.

Although production has ramped up, Morgan expects G&S Foods will add new equipment and process capabilities on an ongoing basis as its customer base expands. The company also has room to expand the operation by another 200,000 square feet to accommodate new business in the long run.

“It’s helpful that we have such a rich history, whether it be our ownership or our senior management team, who have a vast and deep knowledge of the snack community and can help us keep growing this business,” Morgan explained.

This article is an excerpt from the March 2025 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on G&S Foods, click here.