How to Take an Emerging Brand to the Next Level

The story of Pasquale’s Glorious Flatbread is a story not unlike that of many emerging brands. You might start a business because of your passion for the product you’re making, but as that product grows in popularity, how do you scale up efficiently—and continue to grow?

Italian-born Pasquale Zappia’s passion was baking. When he and his wife Mayra opened Via Oliveto in Toronto in 1988, she focused on the restaurant side of the business while he focused on the bakery. Pasquale found his niche in the foodservice sector with his spin on European-style artisanal flatbread crackers. By 2006, the family had sold the restaurant, and sons Patrick and Adriano had moved from the restaurant to the bakery as it relocated to a 2,000-sq-ft facility in Toronto.

In 2007, Via Oliveto started packaging the product for retail sales in a few local food shops and Pasquale’s Glorious Flatbread was born. Soon it was also selling in area supermarkets, and by 2009, Via Oliveto had upgraded to an 8,000-sq-ft facility in Vaughan, just north of Toronto.

Although the family had somewhat evolved its labor-intensive production process over time, it was never going to be able to produce the number of flatbread crackers that the market could ultimately accommodate. By the mid-2010s, they were feeling some key production pain points.

Topping dispensers distribute salt, seeds, or herbs according to each recipe.Reading Bakery Systems

The journey from manual to automated

The process as it stood involved convection baking in rack ovens. The 24-in.-wide system included a bowl mixer, a three-roll sheeter, three gauge rolls and 18 x 26-in. pans. Semi-automatic equipment sprayed the cut triangular pieces of dough with water, salt, seeds, and herbs before the trays were manually placed into the rack ovens to bake, then manually removed to cool. This process included four double-rack ovens with 32 aluminum racks and 2,500 baking pans, all of it handled by four people.

Capacity of this production system maxed out at about 100 kg per hour, which made further growth of the bakery difficult. Though the Zappias knew they needed to upgrade to a more automated system, they didn’t know where to begin.

A trip to the International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE) in 2019 had the Zappias exploring options in what was an overwhelming process. But Reading Bakery Systems (RBS), one among several companies they met with, was able to get them to the next level.

“We thought it was going to be such a challenge, but RBS made it sound like the opposite,” recalls Patrick Zappia.

The family was impressed by the company’s willingness to work with such a small bakery. They also liked that RBS proposed a single solution integrating sheeting line and oven, and the flexibility to produce new products in the future.

After seeing Via Oliveto’s flatbread line in action, RBS proposed a configuration of its modular, fully automated Multi-Crisp Baked Snack System. Then, to help the Zappias through their concerns about making such a big move, RBS invited them to the company’s Science & Innovation Center in Reading, Pa., for a flatbread trial run.

At the Innovation Center, Via Oliveto was able to successfully create all five of its flatbread varieties on smaller, pilot-sized versions of the equipment. In fact, the Multi-Crisp System actually improved product quality because it eliminated the hot and cold spots faced with the rack ovens, providing a more even baking process that gave the flatbread a better mouthfeel.

Within a few months, Via Oliveto had closed the deal with RBS. It was right in the midst of COVID-19 lockdowns, but the orders remained steady for the company’s flatbread. While RBS manufactured the production line, Patrick’s wife Rachel, who manages the business side of Via Oliveto, searched for both a larger facility to fit the new line and funding sources to pay for it. She found an 18,000-sq-ft facility in Barrie, Ontario, that was still under construction when the family committed to it in February 2021. And in March 2021, she learned that Via Oliveto had secured a $500,000 repayable contribution from the Canadian government for which she had applied months earlier.

Just as things appeared to be falling into place, construction delays at the new facility in Barrie forced the Zappias to stay in their old location longer than they wanted. The delays also meant the new facility would not be ready for the scheduled delivery date of the RBS Multi-Crisp System. RBS was able to hold onto the system components for several more weeks, a critical delay that gave the Zappias the extra time they needed to find a storage solution.

Flatbread pieces exit the 48-in.-wide Spectrum Oven and head for packaging.Reading Bakery Systems

System installation and configuration

RBS installed the Multi-Crisp System at Via Oliveto’s new facility in September 2021 as the family kept baking in its old facility, with about a three-week overlap, as the RBS project team responsible installed the new system and instructed the Zappias on its operation. “We needed a lot of handholding,” Patrick says. “But the RBS project managers were amazing and always available.”

The Zappias wanted to upgrade to a larger model of the same mixing bowl they were already comfortable with, so the system was configured for that non-RBS bowl. It mixes 200 kg batches of dough at a time, which a bowl elevator then dumps into a hopper that feeds into a three-roll sheeter, two gauge rolls, then a rotary cutter with two die rolls—a docking roll that puts holes in the dough so it won’t pillow in the oven, and an acetyl rotary cutting roll that creates the triangular flatbread pieces.

Next, the cut dough moves on a conveyor into a caustic cooker, where it is doused with pressurized water before RBS Omega topping dispensers distribute salt, seeds, or herbs as each recipe requires. The dough pieces then travel into a 48-in.-wide Spectrum Oven with two baking zones and an open weave baking mesh.

With the new RBS system, Via Oliveto has quadrupled its flatbread production to 400 kg per hour, and Patrick and Adriano are aiming for a long-term goal of 600 kg. What used to require three to four people can now be accomplished with one-and-a-half to two people, according to Patrick.

While Pasquale is no longer physically involved in the line operation, the brothers look to him for his baking experience. Thanks to the automated line, they now have more time and freedom to integrate his advice. “We don’t have to worry about opening oven doors, checking on the product, adding baking time, closing oven doors,” Patrick says. “The oven part of our production is now 100% hands off, so we can really focus on other parts of the process.”

The flexibility of the new system has also allowed Via Oliveto to start baking a “pretzelized” version of its flatbread. They’re currently producing the pretzels for private label sales but soon intend to offer them to the Canadian and U.S. supermarkets now stocking their flatbread. Once a new automated packaging system is in place, they plan to boost production overall and aim all their products at more supermarkets and big box retailers.