While Mary Ann’s Baking’s leadership team has been strategic about how it pursues business opportunities, the company has also attributed its success to both its product quality and customer service. Andy Demas, chief operating officer and third generation of the family-owned business, acknowledges that the company’s products may not be the lowest price point, but the product quality will deliver a repeat buy from consumers.
“We have a far superior product and a great limited-time offer (LTO) program,” he said. “We have a fair cost but a great product, and our repeat purchases are great.”
In light of inflation, Mary Ann’s Baking is also interested in any steps it can take to reduce its costs to serve its customers while not sacrificing quality.
“A major motivation for investing in automation was hedging against inflation affecting cost of goods,” explained Carl Kuhn, vice president of business development, and son-in-law to John Demas, who owns the company with his brother George. “We’re doing our best to control escalating inflationary costs.”
Andy Demas agreed: “Our goal is reducing cost to serve via automation, which lowers labor expenses and provides more efficient packaging.”
The bakery’s original footprint once held all three production lines: Danish and muffins feeding one oven and multiple packaging lines and a cake donut line. With new business from club stores and in-store bakery growth, it was clear Mary Ann’s Baking would need to increase donut production.
With nationwide distribution, the leadership team considered opening a new facility more centrally located in the United States.
“We spent two years exploring other states for strategic donut line placement,” Andy Demas said.
While that remains a future goal to assist with logistics costs, another facility in Sacramento also caught the company’s attention. Ultimately, the cost of overhead for two facilities in the same city simply didn’t make financial sense.
“Now all operations are under one roof: mechanics, sanitation, quality assurance, logistics — every department supports a single facility,” Andy Demas explained. “Ultimately, investing in property we already owned made the most sense.”
Plus, the company had the room to build onto the building’s cross-dock. In 2022, the leadership team began planning the 50,000-square-foot expansion, and in 2023 they broke ground. Testing the new line began in Q4 of 2024, and on Jan. 6, the new donut line was fully operational.
Mary Ann’s Baking’s new donut line was designed with all of the bakery’s needs in mind: automation for better quality control, higher throughput and reduced touchpoints as well as more decorating capabilities to support customer needs.
Cake donut batter is mixed in a Tonelli mixer in 650-lb batches. Once mixed, the batter is pumped by a Unifiller pump into its shape and size: gem donuts, donut holes or large 2- to 3-oz donuts. The line features two Moline Machinery fryers: a 22-foot fryer for gem donuts and a 28-foot fryer for donut holes and large donuts. Once fried, donuts exit the fryer to be glazed — if necessary — and cooled. During Baking & Snack’s visit, the company’s old-fashioned donut holes — a best-seller — were running on the line. The donut holes passed under a curtain of icing from the Moline glazer. A reclaim system captures the excess icing.
In-line cleaning at the transfer point between the glazing and cooling conveyor keeps the spiral conveyor relatively glaze-free, allowing more flexibility when scheduling glazed products.
The donut holes travel up the spiral cooling conveyor to a mezzanine floor with additional decorating systems. Here, multiple switch points allow products to either bypass these systems or travel to their appropriate destination. Moline tumblers stand at-the-ready for coating products in cinnamon and sugar or churro coating. A chocolate enrober from MF Hamburg Rotzinger Group provides a plethora of decorating options from enrobing to toppings to drizzling.
“For example, we could do a chocolate-coated donut with a crunchy topping and white icing drizzle in the near future,” Andy Demas explained.
The old-fashioned donut holes bypass these systems and were delivered to two IMA Delta scale hoppers below the mezzanine. The hoppers weigh out the donut holes into clamshells, which are automatically sealed by the Delta packaging system and then labeled by the Nita labeler. Pearson systems erect and seal cases after the Delkor case-packer fills them with clamshells of donut holes.
Currently both fryers feed the same spiral cooler and packaging line, but eventually Andy Demas plans to mirror this line with a secondary spiral and packaging line.
The automation on the new donut line allows Mary Ann’s Baking to reach not only new levels of capacity but also new levels of product quality. During its expansion, Mary Ann’s Baking invested in filtered air and temperature control in the building. This improves not only product quality and food safety but also the work environment. Andy Demas noted that most employees are eager to work on the new line in that more comfortable area.
By moving donuts to the expanded area, the bakery has newly available square footage to further add to its muffin and Danish capacity in the future. Currently, the company does have open capacity for both Danish and muffins without expansion.
Both muffin and Danish lines share a 90-foot Henry Group direct gas-fired tunnel oven as well as the packaging department: four Delta wrappers for individually wrapped product and one line that can handle eight-pack Danish.
For the Danish line, flour is stored in two 100,000-lb Fred D. Pfening silos. That flour is automatically delivered to two AMF Bakery Systems horizontal mixers. Other ingredients are hand-scaled and manually added. Dough travels via elevator to a six-roll extruder on the AMF Tromp laminator line. After shortening laminating, the dough is cut into blocks and stored in a retarder for 12 to 14 hours. Andy Demas emphasized there are no quality shortcuts at Mary Ann’s Baking.
After retarding overnight, the dough blocks are sheeted on an AMF Tromp line and then shaped into various products on a versatile makeup table. Finished items are automatically panned, racked and then travel by overhead monorail to the proofer.
On the muffin line, Tonelli vertical mixers create 1,250-lb batches of batter that are pumped and deposited into custom double-wide pans. Mary Ann’s Baking has six different formats of muffins. During Baking & Snack’s visit, the line was running mini lemon loaves. The pans can either be lined with a liner or sprayed with oil, depending on customer requirements.
After depositing, the lemon loaves head to the tunnel oven for baking. When baking Danish, a removeable conveyor transfers them to the oven-
loading conveyor. Once baked, muffins turn left to head to an AMF Tromp needle depanner and a CBF Bakery Systems step cooler for primary cooling. Danish head to a scrabble depanner and a spiral cooler. After primary cooling, the lemon loaves travel through an icing curtain. The muffin line has the capability for icing, glazing and injection with the AMF Tromp line. Products undergo secondary cooling on an IJ White spiral cooler before heading to the packaging department. After being individually wrapped, loaves are manually case-packed with plans for automation.
Mary Ann’s Baking has two on-site freezers totaling 10,000 square feet as well as an off-site freezer where products are stored for pickup by customers or third-party logistics delivery.
With a robust LTO program, production is scheduled strategically to ensure sanitation and production are balanced efficiently.
“When we do a seasonal product or LTO, we’ll tag for example a lemon old fashioned run onto the original old-fashioned run,” Andy Demas explained. “We run a more challenging product at the end or production before sanitation and final changeovers.”
Frozen inventory provides scheduling advantages. Orders are placed 21 days in advance with forecasts that align production with expected demand. This system as well as robust supply chain management has helped Mary Ann’s Baking consistently maintain a 98% customer fill rate.
With the newly available space in the bakery, the Demas family has ambitious plans, including increased capacity for Danish and muffins through a second tunnel oven and packaging department. A Schubert pick-and-place line has already been purchased and awaits installation. A 3,300-lb Tonelli horizontal mixer and FME chunker will upgrade the Danish line. Andy Demas also envisions adding more depositing and injecting capabilities to the muffin line for creating dual flavor muffin and loaf cakes.
As a continuation of the diversification that has worked so well for Mary Ann’s Baking, the team looks to grow the QSR side of their business. When consumers buy a Mary Ann’s Baking Danish, muffin or donut, they typically come back for seconds, and the same is true for customers. Deushane pointed out that the company has many long-term accounts, and that’s the kind of business they look for as they strategically grow.
“We retain our customers and have become more strategic about who we work with,” Andy Demas said. “We seek customers who will remain with us.”
With enhanced capacity and capabilities, Mary Ann’s Baking is ready to be of service.
This article is an excerpt from the April 2025 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Mary Ann's Baking Co., click here.
