A healthier world 'one loaf at a time'

Natural Ovens improves under new ownership

By: Charlie Mathews, Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC — Natural Ovens Bakery employees are getting better grades on Fridays, and that may lead to adding new workers.

"The meetings I hated to go to are now a joy," Glen Hietpas, plant manager, said Friday of the rigorous evaluation sessions led by executives of Alpha Baking Company. It bought Natural Ovens from Paul and Barbara Stitt in March 2007.

Alpha Baking management has implemented several changes designed to enhance the quality of the breads, bagels and other products, as well as increase customer satisfaction.

"Many of the big goals are related to efficiency, such as how many pounds of dough are we putting out per person," said Hietpas, who began his baking career at Natural Ovens soon after Paul Stitt started the company in 1976.

Hietpas said employee productivity has been rising, scrap is declining, and he anticipates Natural Ovens eventually might bake seven days a week, which will mean not having Tuesdays and Saturdays remain down days.

"The plant is excellent and we need the growth capacity," Alpha Baking's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Marcucci said 15 months ago.

Indeed, its other three bakeries — one in La Porte, Ind., and two in Chicago — work three shifts a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Natural Ovens has an 80-foot-long oven dedicated to granola, cookies and bagels, and a 120-foot-long oven for baking bread.

Hietpas said his production staff welcomes the opportunity to help meet consumer demand for products sold under the S. Rosen, Mary Ann, Kreamo and Golden Hearth brand names.

Its products are sold in national restaurant chains — like the hamburger buns at Applebee's — as well as quick service restaurants, schools, major league sports franchises, warehouse club stores, national grocery chains and independent grocery stores.

For the first time in Natural Ovens' history, it has added a quality assurance department, with every batch monitored.

Marketing Director Chelle Blaszczyk said a "sour process" has been added to help lower pH values. That means the bread's shelf life, when sitting on the kitchen counter, has been extended to a little more than a week, rather than two to four days.

Blaszczyk said Natural Ovens products also have been reformulated to improve nutrition, including higher levels of fiber and whole grains.

"And because our customer is committed to a healthy lifestyle, we put in the flax seed with omega-3," she said. "Only a few bread companies do that, and it is an expensive ingredient."

Blaszczyk said Natural Ovens also uses crystalline fructose or evaporated cane juice for sweetening and flavor.

"That is better for our bodies than high fructose corn syrup," said the mother of Paige, 5.
Natural Ovens uses 100 percent whole-wheat flour for its whole grain breads, and it has changed formulations in its bagels, as well. Because of customer demand, they now are packaged pre-sliced.

The bakery has added several organic products as well. It makes the Kirkland Signature organic breads found in the Grafton Costco, as well as other Costco locations in the Midwest.

Blaszczyk said new channels of distribution for Natural Ovens products have opened up because of the Alpha Baking acquisition, and its relationship with the nation's largest food distributor, Sysco.

"That has gotten us into schools, hospitals and health care institutions," Blaszczyk said. "For Natural Ovens, that is a dream come true. We always wanted to get good, nutritious products to these people, but we didn't have the logistics."

She initially joined Natural Ovens on a temporary, six-month assignment to help train delivery drivers in the handheld technology devices they use to track inventory in the trucks and stores.

Blaszczyk has stayed for the past eight years, citing her enjoyment in working with other Natural Ovens staff members and the products they produce.

She can speak just as passionately about nutrition as her father, Paul Stitt.

"It is very powerful when you have customers say, 'You've changed my life,'" Blaszczyk said. "We are making the world a better place one loaf at a time."

Natural Ovens may be best known for its breads, but it also makes bagels, cereal, and cookies.

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