Dive Brief:
- Colorado-based snack company Bobo’s recently opened a wind-powered manufacturing facility in Loveland, Colorado, to meet growing customer demand, the company announced last week.
- The new 123,000-square-foot bakery will more than triple Bobo’s current production capacity to churn out a million bars, bites and toaster pastries per day, according to the news release. “We no longer need to pass up on growth opportunities due to production constraints,” Bobo’s CEO TJ McIntyre said in a statement.
- Bobo’s plans to complete the installation of all new equipment in the facility by the end of January, having “stood up more than a 100% increase in piece/day throughput,” thanks to its larger size, more than double the 55,000-square-feet previously shared between three locations, McIntyre told Manufacturing Dive in an email.
Dive Insight:
The opening of the wind-powered facility is a step toward Bobo’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by the end of the year.
Bobo's is contracted to source wind power from the Platte River Power Authority, which operates turbines in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming, McIntyre said.
In addition to using wind power, the new bakery has succeeded in diverting more than 95% of its raw bakery waste from landfills by converting it to animal feed, in partnership with snack food recycler ReConserve, according to Bobo’s sustainability page.
Wind power is growing as a renewable energy source option. The U.S. added more wind turbine capacity in 2020 than in any previous year, and more capacity than any other power generating technology, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Colorado ranked as one of the top ten states for wind-generated electricity in 2020, deriving 23% of its total electricity output from wind.
The Loveland “super bakery,” as McIntyre described it in his statement, consolidated Bobo’s three previous facilities effectively streamlining its processes, while also reducing its carbon footprint.
“We’ve brought our entire operation, including production and packaging under one extremely efficient, wind-powered roof,” McIntyre said.
With the larger site, Bobo’s is able to avoid transporting people, materials and finished goods between its Boulder, Colorado, and Loveland bakeries and Loveland warehouse. Now, the company has one sanitation, engineering, quality assurance and supervisory team in the same location, McIntyre said in the email.
“With three facilities, there is an inevitability that there will become 'three ways of doing things'... and now we are making processes more uniform,” the CEO said.
The expanded bakery is equipped with 24 ovens and new baking equipment including automated equipment such as a machine that packs the bars into the signature Bobo’s pan.
