Tasty Baking Company, makers of the Tastykake snack line, on June 24 announced that the company has transitioned the remaining two Tastykake production lines from the company's Hunting Park, Pa., facility to its new, state-of-the-art, LEED-registered (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) bakery at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The company's 88-year-old, six-story Hunting Park bakery at 2801 Hunting Park Avenue in the Allegheny West area of Philadelphia has now officially closed for production. Tasty Baking Company announced in April 2010 that it had entered into a purchase and sale agreement with TKMG Associates L.P. and its guarantor, Metro Development Company, for the sale of the Hunting Park property along with the company's former corporate offices and distribution center at 3413 Fox Street for a price of $6.0 million. The company has also sold the physical assets at the old Hunting Park Bakery for a price of approximately $700,000.
The full operation of the seven production lines at Tasty Baking's new 345,000 square foot manufacturing and distribution facility occurs just over three years after the company announced its strategic transition plan in May 2007. The one-story bakery at the Philadelphia Navy Yard features new, highly automated baking equipment and a "straight line flow" from production to packaging to warehouse that opens significant opportunity for product and packaging innovation, while achieving more efficiency in the baking of Tastykake's beloved core products such as Krimpets, Kandy Kakes, Juniors, pies, cookie bars and cupcakes. Currently registered under LEED and awaiting official certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the bakery will be the world's largest "green" bakery, featuring environmentally friendly components such as water conservation, the use of recycled building materials, day-light harvesting and energy-efficient HVAC systems.
"While we celebrate our new bakery and the future of the Tastykake brand with significantly-enhanced manufacturing capabilities, we simultaneously celebrate the legacy of the Hunting Park bakery and its irreplaceable role in the development and growth of the company and our beloved brand," said Charles P. Pizzi, president and chief executive officer, Tasty Baking Company. "Now that we have transitioned all seven of our production lines to the new facility at the Navy Yard, we can turn our focus to the optimization of our operations there, a process which we expect to last through the third quarter of 2010. We believe that the many chapters of Tastykake history at the Hunting Park bakery will be tightly bound to those chapters that we will begin to write at the Philadelphia Navy Yard."
The new bakery's lobby, which will serve as the public gateway and ticketing center for The Tastykake Bakery Tour, features an oversized wall print of the Hunting Park facility. The Tour, which is expected to open to the public in 2011, will also contain historical film and prints from the Hunting Park bakery. Additionally, Tasty Baking Company will continue its support of the Allegheny West Foundation, one of the oldest and most successful community development corporations in Philadelphia, which serves the community around the Hunting Park facility.
About Tasty Baking Company
Tasty Baking Company, founded in 1914 and headquartered in Philadelphia, is one of the country's leading bakers of snack cakes, pies, cookies and donuts with manufacturing facilities in Philadelphia and Oxford, Pa. Tasty Baking Company offers more than 100 products under the Tastykake brand name.
