We started the tour in a large meeting room. Again, per factory rules, everyone was dressed in long pants and closed-toe shoes. Everyone was given a hair net before we went into the factory.
The kids all thought the hair nets were pretty funny. They all had some sort of joke to make about looking like the lunch lady or something.
Two managers split our group into two smaller groups, and each led one group through the plant. It was hot and loud in there! There were areas where the floor was wet and slick. There were beams and tubes hanging low overhead that would be easy to walk right into. During our tour, we saw where the dough was made, where it got put into pans, where it rose, where it baked, where it cooled (a MILE of track to cool from 200 degrees down to a lower temperature of around 100 so that it didn't melt the bag it's put into), where it was bagged, etc. Holsum makes all of the store-brand bread for many of the local stores, some premium brand breads, and buns for lots of the fast food restaurants in town. Holsum makes about, I think, 230,000 loaves of bread every week. On our way home, my kids and their friends were busy working the math to figure out how many sandwiches that would be!
We finished off the tour with a Q&A session. As always, my kids peppered the manager with questions. Each child got to leave with a free loaf of bread.
This was a GREAT tour for older children, teens and adults!
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