The Snackworthy® Blog keeps you up-to-date with the most Snackworthy® news, tips, industry trends and more. Check back often for new posts and insightful information.
Posted on Feb 12, 2018
From manufacturing to your pantry: A behind-the-scenes look at our award-winning Snackworthy® Simply Puffs™
By David Mortemore, Food Research and Product Development Project Manager
As the food research and product development project manager at Lehi Valley Trading Company, I’m often asked how we develop new products. The process, from the new product idea all the way to an order being placed, is what I enjoy most about my job. The chain of events often begins with a customer request or a new concept idea from the sales and marketing team. An example of this process is our company’s history with one of our best-selling products, corn puffs.
How can that little puff come from an ear of corn? You might think it requires a lot of fancy ingredients, but it’s just science. It involves temperature, pressure, moisture levels, and, of course, corn. The proper balance of these different factors controls the environment in the equipment that produces the puff.
When I started at Lehi Valley, the only flavor we produced was our butter toffee puff. The company had an initiative to expand the flavor line which resulted in monthly meetings with the marketing, sales, production and operations teams to discuss new product flavors and evaluate prototype samples. Based on consumer requests, we focused on flavors that would be widely accepted and sell well. Along with expanding our flavor options, we wanted to bring in extruding equipment so we could manufacture the plain puffs in house. Now that we have the necessary equipment, we’ve expanded the puff flavors to include caramel, cinnamon roll, sea salted caramel, and coconut.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look of how we transform bags of cornmeal into our popular and award-winning Snackworthy® Simply Puffs.™
Shaping into puffs
Adding flavor
Packing it up