About the muffins
National Blueberry Muffin Day isn’t until July, but don’t let that keep you from enjoying this simple but oh-so-sweet treat from your local Publix Bakery. Consistently one of the most popular items made in our bakery plant, our Publix Bakery Blueberry Muffins come in a jumbo or regular muffin 4-pack.
In 2022, our bakery plant in Lakeland, Florida, began replacing the ovens used to bake our muffins. The 1st oven has been installed, with a 2nd one on the way. Our newest oven is 80 feet long and loads 11 pans at a time in less than 1 minute. It grows our ability to make more muffins and ensures that each muffin is perfectly baked.
Even though we have a long history of making blueberry muffins, through research and development, we continue to find new ways to improve this product for our customers.
How we make it
The 1st step is gathering, measuring and mixing the raw materials in a large continuous mixer at the Lakeland bakery plant. The ingredients are mixed until they reach the right consistency.
Once the batter is prepared, it’s time for the star of the show: blueberries. In the 2nd step, frozen blueberries are rinsed well, then added to the batter. We use 100% whole blueberries in our muffins, which means no blueberry pieces, artificial colors or flavors. After adding the blueberries, the pans are filled quickly, 9 jumbo pans or 12 regular pans per minute.
The 3rd step is hand-applying the all-natural streusel to the top of each unbaked muffin. This delicious crumb topping is made with sweet honey and creamy butter.
The 4th step is baking the muffins in our new industrial oven for 26 minutes.
When removed from the oven, they’re immediately moved to the cooling spirals where the muffins are transferred to a conveyor belt and then take a 45-minute ride down the cooling spiral. The muffins are then cool enough for packaging.
The 5th step is to carefully hand pack each of the 4-count packages.
In the last step, a label machine adds the packaging label. These labels are created in-house at Publix’s printing services department. The packages of muffins are then weighed and checked for quality and food safety prior to being distributed to our stores.
After the product is made, it’s ready for a road trip! Our freshly baked blueberry muffins are shipped to distribution centers across our operating area for distribution to our stores.
About the bakery plant
Opened in 1972, the Lakeland bakery plant originally had 27 associates and 27,000 square feet of space. More than 50 years later, the original bakery still stands and has expanded to include more than 500 associates, 13 production lines and 225,000 square feet of space.
That’s the size of more than 3 football fields! Some other favorite Publix products created at the Lakeland bakery plant include our Italian 5 grain sub roll, the famous Publix Bakery Carrot Bar Cake and our buttercream icing base.
Did you know? In 2022, we used more than 800,000 pounds of blueberries to make our blueberry muffins. That’s a lot of blueberries!
