SCHWEBEL'S BAKERY They make a lot of bread, but workers rise to the task

By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
TANKER TRUCK PULLS ALONGSIDE Schwebel's bakery, ready to pump flour inside and begin an eight-hour journey that will turn that flour into a loaf of bread.
On the way, flour becomes dough, which is stretched, chopped, flattened and baked.
"What grandma did in her kitchen, we're still doing today," said Mike Elenz, vice president of manufacturing for Schwebel Baking Co.
Only it all happens on a much larger scale.
Instead of one or two loaves like grandma made, the Midlothian Boulevard bakery produces nearly 180,000 loaves of bread and packages of buns each day.
It all starts with the flour -- huge amounts of flour.
Four loads are delivered each day from ADM Milling Co. in Buffalo, N.Y. Each truck brings 45,000 pounds of flour. A hose is extended from the truck to a nozzle at the side of the building so the flour can be pumped into one of four 100,000-pound silos.
Grandma would have used a sifter to eliminate the chunks in the flour. At Schwebel's, they use seven sifters.
The flour is sucked into a sifting machine that vibrates rapidly as it passes the flour through seven screens. Each screen is more fine until it reaches the last screen, which is so fine that water would sit on the screen if it weren't being shaken.
Mixing
Now it's time for the baker to become involved.
While grandma may have put in a pinch of this or a handful of that, the mixer operator at Schwebel's has a computer to make sure the proper amounts of flour, water and yeast are combined. The operator starts out with 750 pounds of flour, which is 70 percent of the total flour that will be used in the batch.
After five minutes of mixing, the operator pours out what is called a sponge into a large metal container.
At first it's a hard mixture that sits at the bottom of the container. Over three and a half hours, the sponge puffs up and becomes soft.
The rising of the dough comes from the yeast working on the starches in the flour. Each hour, the amount and strength of the acids that are produced are chemically tested.
Patience is important, Elenz said, because it is the acids and ethanol that are produced which give bread the proper flavor.
"You know the expression, 'We take no wine before it's time.' We believe the same way,'" Elenz said.
Kneading
Grandma's next step would be to knead her dough to mix in the ingredients.
That's Todd Hupko's favorite job at Schwebel's.
He uses push-button controls to add the rest of the flour, water and yeast, as well as the salt and other ingredients.
This second mixer has tumbling beating arms that spin at 72 revolutions per minute. Operating it is Hupko's favorite job at the bakery.
The job is a challenge because the dough doesn't just plop out. Hupko knows just when to open the door on the side of the mixer and stop the beaters so the machine kicks the 2,200-pound mixture into the metal container on the side.
"You've got to get the timing just right," he said.
When he gets it right during a bakery tour, people cheer. If he gets it wrong, he's got to pull the mixture out.
"It takes about one year to get good at it," he said.
John Donchess, production supervisor, said the length of the mixing depends on the season because temperature affects the consistency of the batch. The dough is mixed six minutes now, but longer in the summer and shorter in the winter.
The dough is left in its large metal container for 10 minutes so it can relax. The goal is to make the dough pliable, but not so elastic that it just falls apart.
Grandma would then cut the dough and flatten it with a rolling pin.
At Schwebel's, the dough is sent on a conveyor belt to a machine that cuts it into balls, which are then sent to a different machine which flattens the dough into about a 12-inch circle.
Flattening is important because it removes gas from the dough, Elenz said. The gas is produced as the yeast works on starches in the dough.
The dough is then rolled and dropped into a pan, just before the conveyor takes it to the baking area.
Randy Blakeman of Austintown recently moved over to this part of the bakery, which is called the make-up area, from the hearth line, which bakes rye and other specialty breads.
The reason
His reason for moving was simple -- family life. He was working 14 hours to 16 hours a day in his previous job but now works from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
"My wife likes that," he said.
Elenz said workers have plenty of opportunity for overtime if they want because of the long hours on the bread-baking lines. Normally, the bakery produces all day five days a week, and part-time on two days. In the summer, however, the bakery is almost always running.
Workers generally move quickly about their tasks, such as operating mixing machines, or moving the containers of rising dough. Some, however, are standing by.
"We like to get to the point where operators look like they are standing around," Elenz said. "That means things are going right."
The next step for the pans of dough is a proof box, which looks like a large oven. The box controls the heat and humidity, so the dough rises to just the right size. It takes 58 minutes.
Then the pans are loaded into an oven, and the dough is baked for between 17 and 25 minutes, depending on bread variety, at temperatures between 400 degrees and 450 degrees.
Once out of the oven, the bread begins a mile-long trek on an overhead conveyor belt. The 55-minute journey is used to cool the internal temperature of the bread from 200 degrees to 100 degrees, so it can be bagged.
Dick Banks of Boardman recently started working as a bagger on the day shift after 24 years of working the midnight shift.
For more than 20 years he worked on a sanitation crew, which cleans machines, because the schedule allowed him to coach football at Wilson and Cardinal Mooney high schools.
"It provided me to make a good living and allowed me to coach. Coaching is my love," he said.
When he stopped coaching, he got a production job because it pays more. First, he put in two years on the midnight shift before a spot opened on day shift.
More than half of the bakery's 450 workers have more than 20 years' service.
Elenz, formerly plant manager of the bakery, seems to enjoy a good relationship with the workers on the line, joking with many as he goes around.
Banks, a union shop steward, said it's like being part of a family at Schwebel's.
"Sometimes we all get along, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes you want to grab someone by the throat, and sometimes you want to hug them," he said.
Banks works at the end of the production line. The cooled bread comes down a conveyor into a slicing machine. Once sliced, the bread stops at a machine that bags the loaf and puts on a twist tie.
Taken for distribution
Workers then put the bread onto trays, which are wheeled to a nearby dock and loaded onto trucks. The trucks take the bread to one of 25 distribution centers. In all, Schwebel's has four bakeries that serve parts of four states.
Elenz said everyone in the plant is motivated to do their best because they know the work they do one day will be on the store shelf the next morning.
"Every day we get to see our product out in the market. It's instant gratification," he said.
shilling@vindy.com