[Cover Story] Schwebel's Takes Breadmaking to Hearth

At Schwebel Baking Company, it’s all about making it as good as grandma’s—literally.

"Baked today. Delivered tonight. In the store tomorrow. That’s part of our recipe," said President Joe Schwebel.

Although the close to a million breads now baked daily at Schwebel’s are significantly greater in number than the 40 loaves that Grandma and Grandpa Schwebel baked and delivered in 1906, today’s hearth breads not only use the same old-fashioned, slow-batch mixing process, they originate from the same starter.

From batch to batch, a portion of the fermented leaven has been reserved since origination to start the next dough; just as from generation to generation, the Schwebels have carried on the traditions and dedication of founders Joseph and Dora Schwebel.

Through the years, the manual process has evolved to automation; the home kitchen to four Ohio bakeries; and deliveries, once made on foot from a basket, are now driven across the region by truck. Generations have passed with the bakery now in its fourth generation of family management, but the founding Schwebel’s focus on quality, service exceeding expectations and innovation has lived on to make Schwebel Baking Company one of America’s fastest-growing, independent wholesale bakers, and its bread an iconic brand, asked for by name in the four-state region it serves.

The ingredients. Baking close to a million breads and buns on a daily basis takes a lot of flour and yeast. At Schwebel’s headquarters plant in Youngstown, that means 70,000 pounds of cream yeast per week and a flour silo room, with four silos holding 100,000 pounds each (at right). To prevent flour from carrying a field contaminant into a bun or slice of bread, Schwebel’s performs a number of quality and safety checks between tanker and mixer:

• all flour is sifted through a series of seven ever-smaller mesh screens, with the final mesh so fine that even water can’t trickle through it.
• the sifter includes magnets to detect and remove any foreign objects that could have been introduced prior to delivery.
• one of the plant’s primary CCPs is the checking of the tailings for any contam-inants.
• Schwebel’s buns start with active, living yeast, which is then stored in the tanks at 34 degrees, so it remains inactive, but alive.
• a policy of first in/first out is practiced with all incoming ingredients.

The sponge. Back in 1906, Grandpa Joe mixed the sponge (flour, water and yeast mix) in a bowl and set it under a towel to rise overnight, after which he mixed in the remaining ingredients that made each specific bread.

Although the general process remains the same, Schwebel’s mixes 1,000-pound troughs of sponge, filling the trough only 1/3 of the way, then allowing it to rise to three inches from the top. The inside of properly risen sponge has a web-like appearance (above) formed from the gluten in the flour. "When we ferment the sponge, we’re looking for a certain structure," said Plant Manager John Phillips. "By having this [web] design, we know it will make a good product."

Mixing it all together. This sponge is the basis for all the yeast breads and buns, as it is in the next step that the specific ingredients are added for the variety of bread to be baked.

Ingredient amounts are controlled by a scaling system in which the mixer logs his or her individual employee ID number. "It monitors every ingredient that is put in, and it cannot vary without a supervisor’s approval," said Vice President of Manu-facturing Michael Elenz.

While most home bakers will mix warm or tepid water with the dough to activate dry yeast, Schwebel’s mixes cold water with its cream yeast. "When in the high-speed mixer, it will build up friction," Elenz said. Thus, cold water keeps the dough temperature from rising above quality levels during mixing (below).

After it is mixed, the dough is allowed to relax for 10 minutes. "Every time we do something to the dough, we let it relax," Phillips said. Then the dough is divided into what will become the loaves, with SPC charts used to ensure exact weight in grams, "because it is a much tighter range." Then, run on conveyors for 90 seconds, the dough again relaxes, to flatten out into the loaf forms.

At its Youngstown bakery, Schwebel’s runs two high-speed lines for its pan breads and buns (below); and one hearth line, which Director of Corporate Communications Lee Schwebel described as "the much slower, authentic hard-crust breads baked right on the hearth."

A living thing. "Dough is a living thing; you have to be very gentle with it," Schwebel said. And, in fact, time and temperature are the most critical elements in bread making. Inadequate time or inaccurate temperatures will affect the flavor, rise and quality of the breads.

It is for this reason that Schwebel’s conveyors stretch, flow and zigzag for more than a mile within the plant, both during initial rising of the loaves and for exact cooling prior to packaging; a full 28 hours from starter to packaging is required for hearth breads; and proof boxes are set to exacting temperature and humidity levels in 58 minute cycles. If, for any reason, a line goes down and a batch cannot move from proofer to oven at its time, Schwebel’s will not try to adjust proofer temperature to preserve it, but will toss the batch to keep from jeopardizing the other batches in the proof box.

Taking Breadmaking to Hearth. It is in the baking oven that there is one of the greatest differences between today’s technology and in grandpa’s day. The hearth rye bread, for example, is baked in a frame on the open hearth rather than on pans to create an evenly browned crust around its top and sides (above). Only the ends of the loaves touch the frame in order to ensure exact, uniform length.

The bread is placed on a mesh feed conveyor at one end of the 70-foot ovens, flowing through at precise time and temperature. With today’s technological advances, however, the ovens can bake two types of bread at the same time—automatically changing temperature as the bread goes through. Again, SPC systems enable quality controls based on internal temperature, height and color.

The evolution from manual to automation is also highly evident on the high-speed pan-bread and bun lines (above), where "magic fingers" remove the breads and buns from their pans. It is technologi-cal advances such as these suction-cup depanners that have enabled the plant to keep human fingers off the breads, said Schwebel, explaining, "No human hands ever touch the product from beginning to end."

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An Extended Family of 1,300

While there’s no shortage of family companies in the food industry, Schwebel Baking Company, which is in its fourth generation, defines family by different terms.

Schwebel’s President Joe Schwebel is the grandson of founders Dora and Joseph Schwebel and just one of the 10 family members who work in the business on a daily basis. In addition to Joe are Director of Corporate Communications Lee; Executive Vice President Paul; Strategic Technology Manager Adam; Office Manager Maryn; Retail Sales Supervisor Jana; Senior Vice President-Sales Alyson Winick; Senior Vice President-Transportation Joseph Winick; and Corporate Treasurer Senior Accountant David Alter.

"The constant," Joe said, "is the bloodline; the Schwebel family and our commitment to quality."

But Joe’s reference to family and quality commitment goes well beyond the bloodline. "I’m just one of the 1,300," he said, referring to the total number of employees, or "team members," at Schwebel’s four plants.

Schwebel’s is one company that truly lives the term, "family business," as evidenced by its team. With employee retention rates averaging more than 10 years, Lee said, "the tenure rate of Schwebel’s is twice the national average."

And that, he said, "translates to quality. The people here are very experienced."

It is not easy to get hired at Schwebel’s, Lee said, but once hired, "there’s a sense of belonging; of family.

"Our real ambition is not to put square pegs in round holes." The company looks for people with integrity, people who have, he said, "the same work ethic that our family has; that Dora and Joseph had."

When grandson Joe joined the company in 1960, there were a lot more Mom and Pop stores to which the bakery delivered, he said, noting that the huge stores of today didn’t exist. "But the commitment to quality, that’s always been a constant. I’ve always maintained that we need to have the best quality product; we always need to maintain service that exceeds the customer’s expectation.

"Put those together and what you need to accomplish those are people. They are what have enabled us to reach the point we are at today."

"It really is the people," Lee affirmed. "Machines and innovations are wonderful. They make it more efficient. But it’s the people and the working together.

"Assuring the very best quality is the best job security anyone can have."

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Finalizing the quality. The "no hands" technology continues into product packaging, where bags are blown open, sliced bread slid into the bags and twist ties tacked onto the ends (below)—all significantly faster than this sentence can be read.

It is also at this point that final quality controls are run:

• Each line has a metal detector placed just prior to packaging. The detector is calibrated every hour and with every product change.
• To ensure traceability, each bag is coded by plant, machine, shift and op-erator. Schwebel’s also runs two mock recalls a year, whereby a manager selects an ingredient, then puts the plant through the paces that would be required if that ingredient were recalled.
• Each of Schwebel’s four plants, in Youngstown, Cuyahoga Falls, Solon and Hebron, Ohio, have product scoring teams. Random products are picked by a line operator, then the team views and tastes the items based on attributes by which consumers select breads (above). Product is also sent to headquarters each day for judging. Although they are in-house teams, Phillips said, "they are much harsher than the consumer. We’ve actually made it harder on ourselves here."

"Quality has given us a good name over our 104 years," Schwebel said, attributing the company’s success to its consistent quality. "You can trust that it will always be the same."

And skeptics needn’t take his word for it, but can judge on the facts: Schwebel’s Giant loaf has become the best selling white bread in Ohio; its buns have won The Long Company Bakery Cooperative Best Bun award for four consecutive years; and, if you judge solely on numbers: for Memorial Day 2009, Schwebel’s sold so many buns that if they were placed end to end, the line would stretch from Youngstown to Atlanta—and back.

The author is Managing Editor of QA magazine. She can be reached at llupo@giemedia.com.