Tradition Fine Foods

A fine tradition in baked goods

Tradition Fine Foods Ltd is a family-owned business, founded in 1982. With 225 employees, they are based in Toronto, Canada. Tradition Fine Foods is a market leader in thaw and sell baking technology. They develop and produce high quality frozen sweet goods, including proof-and-bake and freezer-to-oven for contract manufacturing, private label, retail, and food service.

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A specific, custom-designed challenge

In 2016, Tradition took a look at their bar line manufacturing equipment. It had other types of depositors and extruders that were designed for handling various batters and doughs, but nothing that could form and sheet high-particulate bars. The decision was made to find an equipment manufacturer that could meet this challenge.

Tradition did their due diligence across multiple suppliers, as it is their policy to always have three quotes for any capital investment. Each option was researched, and a comprehensive comparison of each vendor’s capabilities was performed, looking at sanitation and hygiene design as well as the overall value proposition. PTL was one of the three vendors selected.

“They stood out for their high quality and hygiene design,” recalls Thomas Glowczewski, President. “Also, we had a customer who was familiar with PTL and had a 1-foot wide forming system in their testing facility,” says Thomas. It was what they’d been using for creating their prototypes samples. They spoke very highly of PTL.”

With that recommendation in mind, Tradition concluded after their due diligence that PTL were the right choice for their application. They contacted PTL and described the project they had in mind and their requirements. “They were able to come back really quickly with a great solution,” Thomas says.

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A quick turnaround was required, and met with PTL agility

The project was for a custom design that could form and sheet high-particulate bars. “Our project had a tight timeline, and we elected to skip doing a product FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) given the great results that we saw on our customer’s test unit,” Thomas explains. “But when we installed the equipment and began running our product, the equipment encountered extreme forces based on the properties of our dough and began to deflect to the point that we couldn’t control our weights.”

A challenge that needed to be resolved urgently, PTL travelled to Canada and immediately got involved designing a solution that would enable this particular type of product to run on the sheeting system. “PTL were fantastic with these changes,” Thomas recalls. “We went through the design concepts, and our three teams of engineers (PTL’s, Tradition’s and our customer’s) agreed on the right concept.”

This result was that the new parts were fabricated very quickly, and installation was performed efficiently. “Also, the equipment still looks great… like it was never modified,” says Thomas.

Thomas goes on to say that Tradition was greatly appreciative that PTL understood the urgency of their challenge and were committed to meeting it as speedily as possible.

“The timing from design enhancements, to part fabrication, to equipment installation exceeded our expectations and enabled us to launch our new project successfully,” Thomas explains. “PTL provided fantastic and timely support to our project.”

Working smoothly across the globe

Throughout the project, geographical differences were never a problem. Although PTL is based in New Zealand, Tradition was impressed with the support for the project, then and now.

“Their distance from our plant was not a hindrance in any way,” Thomas says. “PTL often has sales and technical representatives travelling in our area and we always appreciate their offer to stop by and see if we have any issues,” Thomas says.

Thomas says that PTL are now one of their go-to equipment suppliers. “By visiting their fabrication facility, we’ve learned that they are able to provide a wide range of processing solutions and that they maintain the same quality of work and same high-hygiene design in their other equipment,” he says.

“They are a responsive, proactive and proven solution partner. Unforeseen project challenges can occur, and it’s so important to know that PTL stands behind their equipment and ensures their customers’ success. They’re a great equipment partner that I would highly recommend.”