Pistachio! Pistachio! Pistachio! Our new Browned Butter Pistachio Shortbread Cookies are the talk of the town. This nutty cookie starts its journey as a humble pistachio-inspired recipe.

Step 1

The process begins when our bakery plant research and development (R&D) team creates a pistachio-inspired cookie recipe and refines the flavor, texture and ingredients. Then the recipe is lab-tested until all the flavors blend together just right.

Step 2

Next, the ingredients are gathered, staged in large batches and mixed together to form a dough. Some ingredients, such as flour, sugar and water, are added from overhead bulk handling, while others are added by hand.

Step 3

After the dough is made, it is transferred onto a conveyor belt, which leads into a hopper. That’s where the dough is squeezed through a die and cut by a wire-cut machine. This process forms the individual cookie dough pieces.

Step 4

These pieces then enter a spiral freezer. From the freezer, they are conveyed into a weighing and packaging system.

Step 5

When the ideal weight is reached, the cookie dough pieces are dropped into boxes. Each box is inspected, taped closed, put through a metal detector, labeled and then robotically palletized.

Step 6

The pallets are wrapped and shipped on trailers to our distribution centers for delivery to our stores to be freshly baked.

About the bakery plant

Opened in 1972, the Lakeland bakery plant began with just 27 associates working in 27,000 square feet. More than 50 years later, the original bakery still stands and has grown to employ more than 500 associates across 13 production lines spanning 225,000 square feet, nearly the size of 4 football fields.