Wedemeyer Bakery's The Strain Family
You go to the customer with pure confidence. This is what you're going to get every day.
When we bought the new [WP Haton Classica] bread line, we were replacing an extremely old line. It was massive. It was probably four times what it is now. There's one person that runs the divider and that divider hits a pound and a half every single time.
The next step in the process is the initial rounding…and then it goes into our overhead proofer where it is gently flipping it over and letting it rest.
The final step is the moulding and – whether it's 20″ long or 6″ long – it's really easy to adjust and to set… and it allows us to run some artisan bread because of how gentle it is on the dough.
That equipment solved a lot of issues for us. It really took us to the next level.
When asked by other bakers, you know…"what do you think of this piece of equipment or that piece of equipment?" I will usually steer them towards WP.
We saw the demand for specialty rolls. I watched the [Miniroll] roll line run and, after 5 minutes, I knew that was the roll line that we were going to buy. We were getting calls from customers the first week, saying "the rolls have been great. What other rolls do you have?" and that has allowed us to grow that segment of the business tenfold.
I can adjust the pressure, the rollers, the pockets, and I can let it rest for a little bit. I can interchange pans with just the press of a button. No other machine we looked at could do that.
Everything just looks so much better. It's night and day. It is my favorite piece of equipment here.
They tell me exactly what the machine can and can't do. And, if I ever have an issue, it's going to get solved in a timely manner.
With the old ovens, when we would take a rack out of the oven and shut the oven door, we could lose 40°. [With our Rototherm Green Rack Oven,] we don't have that issue now.
My night-time baker…his job went from a full 8 hours of baking to roughly 6 hours. We also saw savings in our gas prices …10%. It was right on the money.
You can bake 1,000 dozen of one item…switch very quickly to 200 dozen of another item…require steaming, temperature, air velocities…these ovens allow us to do that. You can control the crust, the thickness of the crust, the color…it's rack in, rack out, rack in, rack out.
The first night that we had all the ovens up and running, we were done 2½ hours earlier than we normally are.
I trust them.
My name is Paul Strain…
My name is Eric Strain…
I'm Larry Strain of Wedemeyer Bakery…and I'm a raving fan of WP.