Local Oven™ creates gluten-free baked goods that have excellent texture, rich flavors, and traditional bread product taste. Local Oven also offers other alternatives to traditional wheat-based products, including gluten-free pasta imported directly from Italy, and specializes in supplying products to the restaurant industry, industrial gluten-free manufacturers, and gluten-free wholesale distributors. A large part of their business is co-packing for other gluten free manufacturers.
Linda Fitzerman founded Local Oven after discovering that she had gluten intolerance. She missed and craved delicious breads and other foods and was disappointed by the available gluten-free products. In 2011, after taking a year and a half to perfect her recipes, she launched Local Oven. The company quickly doubled in size the following year and then moved to a 30,000 sq. ft. location to facilitate the equipment required to make 70,000 lbs. of croutons monthly, as well as, a range of appetizing breads and baked products.
Local Oven products are proudly featured at leading restaurants and hotels across the United States, including The Hyatt®, Fuddruckers®, Ruth's Chris Steak House®, Schlotzsky's®, and The Ritz-Carlton®. Local Oven attributes their success to products with great flavor, made under the highest quality standards, efficient and safe processes, and strong strategic partners, including Heat and Control®.
Local Oven attributes their success to products with great flavor, made under the highest quality standards, efficient and safe processes, and strong strategic partners, including Heat and Control.
Local Oven uses the Spray Dynamics Seasoning System to reliably and consistently reproduce Fitzerman's recipes.
To ensure products are of the highest quality, all finished goods go through a CEIA THS metal detector to screen for metal contaminants that may have slipped into manufacturing process.
Heat and Control's processing expertise, equipment, and quality assurance technology "...allowed us to grow into those quantities so that we could service the customer with the right price and great quality, and the quality is second to none because the equipment is second to none," insists Fitzerman.
Local Oven uses the Spray Dynamics® Seasoning System to reliably and consistently reproduce Fitzerman's recipes. The coating drum was designed, engineered, and manufactured to their specific product requirements and is available in several sizes and configurations if additional lines are needed as the company grows. The shell-in-shell drum provides sanitary operation and simple cleaning, and the variable tilt frame assembly and product flight design exposes each piece of product to the application of liquid and/or dry coatings.
To ensure products are of the highest quality, all finished goods go through a CEIA® THS metal detector to screen for metal contaminants that may have slipped into manufacturing process. With several levels of sensitivity, immunity to interference to meet strict quality control standards, and quick reject response, CEIA is the leading manufacturer of industrial metal detectors.
"Those metal detectors were an amazing peace of mind because we have great procedures in place, and we take them seriously," confesses Fitzerman.
According to Fitzerman's husband, Todd, who handles the operational side of the business, "If it were not for Heat and Control's guidance, and compassion, and understanding of working with a company that was small in nature but had a great product to produce, we would have failed… we would not have been able to accept the purchase orders for companies that entrusted us to produce their product…we would have failed miserably. We're a small manufacturer; Heat and Control was willing to walk us through the entire process of how to manufacture croutons."
After Heat and Control helped the Fitzermans determine the optimal equipment for their needs, installation went flawlessly. Todd recounts, "Heat and Control has never let us down. They have been with us every step of the way during our manufacturing journey and why we continue to go to Heat and Control as we grow and we need new pieces of equipment. If you're a small business owner, you need to align yourself with good, solid, strategic partners and Heat and Control is where you need to spend your money (be)cause they won't let you down."
