A One-Stop-Shop Co-Manufacturer

A wide range of services as well as an emphasis of employee engagement drive the Utah-based co-manufacturer, Honeyville, into the future.

BY MELISSA GRIFFEN, Editor

Not located in the Mid-west where most of the industry operates, Honeyville has needed to differentiate itself to retain value as a partner to brands and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. Honeyville’s history in food and beverage allows the company to provide a wide range of services within and without contract manufacturing. The co-man has also invested resources into workforce to increase employee engagement.

A history of innovation and entrepreneurial drive

The company was founded in Honeyville, Utah as a milling and processing plant for specialty grains in 1951 by Lowell Sherratt, Sr. When Lowell Sr. died, his son, Lowell Jr., was bent on driving Honeyville into the 21st century. The company began buying and reselling bulk ingredients and by the mid 1990s, had built three more facilities and invested in its first blending operation, primarily for bulk.

By the late 90s, blending operations had extended to small pack for CPG customers and the contract manufacturing side of the business was born. Honeyville’s co-man business has become a growth engine for the company and mainly operates out of its Ogden, Utah facility.

“Lowell Jr. could look at a line and he could say we can do this better. Or he was willing to take his money which was invested in the company and figure it out,” says Johnny Ferry, vice president of business development, who started as a production line worker at the company in 2000 and married into the Sherratt family.

Since Lowell Jr.’s passing in 2018, the company is owned by various family members, with industry professionals brought on, such as David Brown, the CEO since September 2022. This transition allows Honeyville to grow in new ways, while striving to keep its innovative drive.

Considering Honeyville’s history with dry ingredients, it’s no surprise that it serves the breakfast, baked goods and cold and hot drinks industries, but it also delves into dry blends for dinner meals, soups and side dishes. Honeyville also works in e-commerce, direct-to-consumer and emerging brands.

Co-man services the company provides include, dry ingredient mixing, blending and packing, custom grain milling, heat treatment to ensure sterilized dry ingredients, material sourcing, outsourced supply chain for logistics, fulfillment and supply planning, in-house research and development services, including formulation and nutritional analysis.

Co-man as an innovation partner

Searching for innovative solutions widens the CM/CP’s range of abilities, which can open the door to further contracts that require abilities the company didn’t realize it could possess. Ferry shares two projects that increased Honeyville’s applications.

The first he found at a trade show. A few soccer moms made a healthyier, tastier granola dish served as oatmeal-in-acup out of their garage. Though a newer concept to industry, Lowell Jr. gave Ferry the green light to line up tables and nail down the process and ratios.

Through Honeyville’s blending capabilities, the process was decreased to four drops — oats, powders, berries, and one other variable component. Success on that line resulted in a second line and a high-speed third line.

The second project involved a large brand wanting to put a mix in a rigid, traditional 502 canister with metal endseam paperboard. Due to effects from

Honeyville, Inc.

Headquarters: Ogden, Utah

Locations: Honeyville, Utah; Chandler, Arizona; Rancho Cucamonga, California

Employees: 400+ the COVID-19 pandemic, costs of those materials had gone up exponentially, taking the project off the table. Ferry offered another packaging solution.

Main industries served: CPG brands, supermarket/grocery, club stores and foodservice.

Types of products handled: Dry ingredient mixes (blending and packaging); product categories include drink mixes, side dishes, baking mixes, breakfast, dessert and ingredients. Packaging services offered: Bagin-box, pouch/stand-up pouch, microwavable cups (paperboard, plastic and/or fiber – traditional or biodegradable/compostable), bulk bag-in-box, totes/supersack, 50lbs bags and rigid container.

Certifications: SQF certification at each plant; Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) certified; peanut free, non-GMO verified, Organic, Kosher, Halal, Vegan and Gluten Free (GF).

Keeping in mind that the customer wanted a durable container, the Honeyville team connected with their cup format supplier to create a giant-sized version to fit three pounds of product. This cut the cost of manufacturing by more than half and improved shelf space utilization and recyclability.

“It was a simple plate change to go from a small little round to a bigger container. The customer loved it. It resurrected the five million pound a year project,” says Ferry.

The new machine has been running since June for three customers with more on the way. What normally would have been a two-year process was compressed to six months and the product will be on the shelves fall 2023.

Focusing on a diversity of supply

Offering variety of services can make a valuable partner. Ferry lists diversity of machinery — to run different pack formats as customers branch out to reach consumers — and diversity of supply, becoming a one-stop-shop. Honeyville manages different pack formats through a good engineering team and ensuring enough space for machinery.

On diversity of supply, Honeyville’s history of milling and blending operations means the company has a direct-to-farmer connection, and it both uses the products it mills internally and sells them to local bakeries. Honeyville also keeps many suppliers for access to ingredients.

The Ogden facility has five blenders, including ribbon blenders, paddle blenders and gravity blenders with inclusion capability, that hold up to 5000 pounds per batch. When customers bring a product to Honeyville that they want commercialized, Honeyville’s R&D team will suggest the order of blending and blending times in steps that includes metal detection, sifting, micro lab testing and other testing capabilities.

R&D services and testing are free for brands and retailers looking to formulate or modify recipes. Testing capabilities include sensory, pH levels and viscosity. Honeyville has partners for further testing.

Honeyville plans to invest in 3PL services by warehousing stock product for customers and shipping directly to retailers and some consumers and brand customers. Being a partner involves both timely responsiveness to customer demands and questions and transparency through communication when challenges and delays occur.

The co-man also improve its transparency and efficiency by moving paper records to the Redzone system to better track ingredients and overall quality, regulatory compliance, operations and food safety.

Digitalization drives higher employee engagement and learning

The Redzone system, which is accessible to employees on tab- lets, is also a means for Honeyville to meet environment, social and governance (ESG) goals through:

1. Access to the system: Operators can check equipment to ensure they’re within specifications and achieving production goals.

2. Communication: Operators communicate with other employees about setbacks and delays or other factors that impact production.

3. Suggestions and feedback: Redzone allows employees at all levels to use a suggestion feature. Many suggestions have come from frontline workers on how to improve efficiency in packaging and raw material handling. “We want to drive that culture throughout the organization. It’s not just quality and safety, but it’s also about efficiency, and how we can achieve the best possible results,” says Brown.

4. Employee development: Redzone is used as a learning and retention tool for employees. Through a learning module, employees will have the opportunity to control their own destiny through further education and skill development, says Brown.

Besides using Redzone, Honeyville is currently working with its HR team to create a professional development program and other educational opportunities. Three sessions have been identified to bring in professional trainers on accountability, interviewing and engaging in hard conversations with fellow employees. To assist the trainings, all Honeyville employees complete a personality test that lays out individual’s decisionmaking ability and motivators, such as sustainability and compliance. The test helps individuals better understand how to approach fellow employees about hard discussions, as well as of their own weaknesses, to improve collaboration.

Honeyville strives to be a learning organization, encouraging employees to step out of their comfort zones and develop new skills that can lead them to management positions, whether they be with Honeyville or another company.

Honeyville also operates on an open book management system since 2021, which details the company’s financials. Weekly meetings include representation from each department, reporting on their impact to the bottom line, from custodian to CEO.

“Each of our [department] financial statements are being shared with the line workers, which allows a more detailed conversation and training because each person knows the impact that they have financially on the bottom line,” says Ferry.

Employees also participate in Honeyville’s bonus incentive program, which takes savings, earnings or profits and puts them in a pool for frontline workers, which Ferry says has changed the culture.

Finding value in CPA membership

Honeyville joined CPA in November 2021 thanks to CEO, David Brown, who saw value from the very first CPA meeting in getting to know the market and competitors, talking with competitors to gain a better understanding of industries worth investing in, meeting fellow CM/CPs who have experienced similar challenges and are willing to share insights and even a phone call with their maintenance personnel for an equipment issue and opportunities to connect with potential customers.

“This is what we needed,” says Brown. “Right now we’re working with one of our competitors. We don’t do anything peanut here at this facility, so one of the people we met at CPA, that business is going to them.”

Brown looks forward to further opportunities to benefit from CPA, discuss best practices and learn from his fellow members. “In my old association, I could call somebody and say, ‘I’m thinking about this in best practices,’ and we’re willing to share. There’s things to be gained. That’s going to benefit the entire industry,” he says. CM+P