A day in production at Tartefrais

8 a.m Telesales office. The first orders come in. They arrive by fax, by telephone and by information networks from all over France and abroad. Jacqueline and Christelle process the orders for production. During the night shift production continued, in order to get in front for anticipated orders- creating a delicious, mouth watering smell, which wafts just into the offices.

8.30 a.m. Production staff changing rooms. The next shift prepares itself. In order to proceed into the production area all staff have to pass through the changing area, and it is mandatory that all personnel wear protective coats, boots, head wear, gloves and face mask. Hands must be washed thoroughly. Martine who is responsible for quality at TARTEFRAIS, ensures that all staff are fully aware of the importance of respecting the procedures in the framework of HACCP. Everyone moves on to take up their positions.

9 a.m. The stocking of raw materials. Christophe, who is responsible for ensuring we have the necessary raw materials at the right time, has just had a delivery of pasteurized egg liquid to which he allocates a lot number, which he does to this and every delivery in order to guarantee the product traceability. " my role involves checking the conformity of each delivery from every one of the fifty or so raw materials suppliers. We use obviously fresh products, but also frozen, tinned and other conserves not forgetting the cardboard and the plastic film for our packaging" explains Christophe.

10 a.m. Quality control office. Diane checks all raw materials at the time of delivery. "I check primarily weight, shape, grade, sugar content, hardness as well as the PH of our apples " she explained. " Equally, I take a selection of our finished tarts at the end of the production line for bacteriological and analysis in our own laboratory and we also send sample to an independent registered laboratory ". From the reception of our raw materials to the moment of delivery of our finished products the quality control department is aware of all food safety and traceability procedures.

11 a.m. Pastry and filling preparation room:
Mickaël proportions accurately the flour and sugar form his computer. " We make all our pastry and base fillings : flan, Normandy cream, lemon cream, almond cream, chocolate etc... Our flan is made to a traditional recipe : milk, flan powder, eggs, sugar and a vanilla pod." he told us while programming the kneading machine. In the room next door, Samuel puts the tinned syrup fruit into racked colanders to drain off the syrup : apricots, plums, cherries and pineapples... In another room, the apple peeling and coring machine works around the clock. Our apple tarts are TARTEFRAIS' leading product, which explains the five tonnes of apples used daily.

2 p.m. The main production hall. Everybody is active on the different production lines. A series of almond and pear tarts are being made. The pastry is forced automatically into a mould, then the almond cream is added to the dosing machine. The pears are added manually as we do for all our product range. On the apple tart production line, the seven operatives manually add the sliced apple building from the outside in moving efficiently and precisely. It takes 8 seconds to garnish et 20 centimeter tart. Arnaud, Bruno et Thierry, the team leaders, settle details with Serge, the production manager. They have to start a production run for the chocolate fondant which was recently launched and has been an instant hit.

3 p.m. Cooking room. The Tarte Normande enters the 20 meter long tunnel oven. They cook on a slowly moving bed and come out hot and golden brown 50 minutes later. Nicolas checks the flans, fars and cherry clafoutis in the rotating ovens.

4 p.m. The packing hall. George prepares the glaze topping, an apricot base, which makes the tarts shine. It is a delicate step because the glaze has to be applied at an optimum temperature in order to keep his properties for the shelf life of the product. The tarts are then removed from their moulds and placed into the transparent heat formed film with the oxygen absorber sachet. Then the tarts pass the metal detector and finally the film is heat sealed. Immediately, the absorber sachet starts to do its work inside the packaging. .

5 p.m. The palleting hall. Here everyone is busy preparing and making up the orders. The packaged tarts are labelled and placed in their boxes. The preparation team prepare a pallet to a clients order : 26 boxes of Apricot tarts, 18 boxes of Apple tarts, 15 boxes of Almond and Pear tarts and one sample of a chocolate fondant for tasting with a view to being referenced by the client. Nathalie checks the conformity of the orders and ensures that there are no packaging problems. The pallets are wrapped in cling film and then grouped according to their final destination. Sebastien, responsible for transport logistics, settles details with the transport company in order to organise the nights deliveries.

11 p.m. The delivery hall. The last tarts are loaded from the loading bay into a refer. During the night, the tarts travel all over France and neighbouring countries to reach their final destination, in order to satisfy the demanding palate of our consumers.