I had too many trip requests all come in at the same time and had to find someone to go on the Dominos Mom Blogger Press Junket. I found my friend Connie, from Miscfinds4u.com Here is her experience on Domino’s Pizza Dough Making Process.
By Connie:
I got the chance to visit a Domino’s Pizza Distribution Center in Michigan a few weeks ago and see the dough making process in person. I had no idea that Domino’s makes their own dough.
The dough is made fresh at Distribution Centers across the US and Canada. Each DC makes dough 1 to 6 days a week depending on the number of stores it supports. The DC I visited makes dough 3 days a week and supports 275 stores. They break down and clean the dough making room at the end of every day and anytime the line is shut down for more than 2 hours. It takes about 4 hours to break down and scrub the room and when they start their next production day, they sanitize everything again before production begins.
It doesn’t take very many people to make massive amounts of dough when most of it is mechanized. It’s a pretty impressive process. Check out the video for details on how the dough goes from a silo of flour to finished dough loaded onto refrigerated trucks for next day delivery.
Some things I found interesting about the process:
· Dough is rejected at the quality control/template station if it’s not the correct size/weight. After working the table for some time, the men working there can tell by feel if the dough is even an ounce off. The dough is tossed into a reject bin and then sent back through the system so there’s very little waste.
· It takes 3 hours for the dough to cool from 80 degrees in the mixing room to 30 degrees in the proofing room. The dough is stacked to allow moisture to evaporate so that it stays fresher, longer. Once the dough is chilled, it’s maintained at that temperature until it’s delivered to the walk-in refrigerator at the store.
· The DC has two flour silos – each holds 55K pounds of flour – and an oil tank that pumps oil into the production room.
· There are no dough extenders or preservatives, so the dough made today is in a store within about 24 hours.
· The workers in the production team are trained to do every function within the Distribution Center and because they work in cold temperatures, they’re rotated every 2 hours so.
· I was also surprised to find out that the Distribution Center stocks everything a store needs to run from ingredients to cleaning supplies.
· Dough trays are returned to the DC and cleaned to be reused time after time.
· Domino’s is in the process of changing to “greener” cleaning chemicals.
My overall impressions were that the center was clean, very noisy, and appeared to run well. I was impressed to find out the dough was made with fresh, natural ingredients and that no dough extenders were used. I feel much bettering eating Domino’s Pizza know that I know more about them.
I’ll share some more of the experience with you over the next week. It was a fabulous look inside the pizza chains operation. Special thanks to Louise from Mom Start for allowing me to guest post.
About Connie
Connie blogs about being a vegetarian who cooks for her meat-loving hubby, OAMC, DIY home decor, gardening, and more. She’s a middle age mom to two adult boys and wife since 1983 to one terrific man. She’s been doing online reviews since 2002 and is in the top 100 Most Popular Authors at epinons.com. She’s the owner of Princess Time Toys, an online princess store selling quality children’s dress-up costumes and toys.
