Northgate Markets

The situation

Northgate Markets needed a central commissary to manufacture raw proteins, ready-to-eat products and work-in-progress items for a network of 45 high-volume supermarkets, while the existing section of the plant was being remodeled and aggressively expanded.

What Practical Solutions did

• Conceptualized and designed the 110,000 sq ft USDA/FDA commissary.
• Managed the architectural and engineering design, selected and managed the general contractor and every subcontractor through construction, and handled the relationship with the city and the permit application.
• Designed segregated raw pork, beef and chicken production areas to comply with USDA requirements.
• Added a high-volume tamal area and designed a corn cooking operation for tamales and retail masa that drastically reduced process-water consumption.
• Modernized the kitchen with more kettles, roasters and skillets to make retail salsa cups and cook rice for every store, and opened a chicharron operation.
• Designed two fully automated lines that pack retail spices from 10 grams to 1 kilo and dried chile pods from 4 ounces to 1 pound.
• Laid out the equipment in every room, commissioned every piece of equipment and trained the machine operators and production employees to use it.
• Did the initial recipe R&D, commercialized the recipes and wrote the procedure for every formula.
• Established a USDA-level sanitation program with written SSOPs and wrote the job description for every management and hourly position.

The result

A commissary with dedicated capacity for proteins, tamales, masa, salsas, rice, chicharron and packaged spices and chiles. Nacho managed day-to-day operations for the first six months, until a new management team was in place, and then transitioned the operation to them.