We couldn't wait to take our hairnets off and start taking notes on all of the amazing things we learned, saw and tasted from our tour of the Sandridge Food Corporation plant in Medina!
We were graciously invited to this impressive facility and were thrilled to be given the opportunity. Sandridge makes only fresh and refrigerated prepared foods - never frozen. Their customers include Heinen's, Whole Foods, Giant Eagle - and their largest customer, GFS!
We started the day off with a presentation overview of the culture and inner workings of Sandridge. To our delight, all three of our pillars were touched on at some point during the day, as Sandridge, a LOCAL company, shares many of the same philosophies that we do! We learned that their impressive roster of employee includes food scientists who routinely travel to Europe to learn techniques of food production and gather ideas of new concepts. Traveling to Europe to be in-the-know on all things food?! Talk about GLOBAL, ON-TREND!
A big part of our discussion was on food integrity and what it means to call a product CLEAN LABEL. We had several discussions between our team and theirs on what we feel defines clean label. Sandridge presented us with a beautiful menu of their clean label recipes, six of which we were lucky enough to have for lunch! One of Sandridge's claims to fame is that they utilize High Pressure Processing (HPP). These powerful machines use cold water and apply extreme pressure - 85000 lbs for three minutes! - to the finished food product. This destroys all bacteria, allowing their products to have a much longer shelf life, without the need to add preservatives!
Next, we took off our jewelry, put on our knee-length smocks, hairnets and boots, and had a boots-on-the-ground (no pun intended!) tour of the plant. We were impressed to say the least! No cameras allowed, or you know the PPLLC team would've had a field day with pictures! One interesting piece that we learned during the tour had nothing to do with the food itself, but with Sandridge's commitment to SUSTAINABLE production. Our tour guide developed a system that took Sandridge's landfill footprint from 100% of their trash going to landfills, down to 20%! Their commitment and focus on clean label and sustainability is what made this meeting of the minds such a productive and worthwhile day! We are looking forward to future conversations with Sandridge. Stay tuned!