Ruiz Food Products, Inc., 2015 Frozen Foods Processor of the Year
Find out how this family-owned business continues to build, grow and evolve for the future.
Ruiz Foods Logo
Ruiz Foods
Back row left to right: David Auchterlonie, executive vice president, chief financial and corporate development officer; Kimberli Carroll, senior vice president, foodservice sales division; Mike Secor, vice president, marketing; Tony Caetano, senior vice president, administration; Fred Ruiz, co-founder and chairman emeritus; Kathleen Da Cunha, senior vice president, corporate strategy and R&D. Seated left to right: Kim Ruiz Beck, chairman; Brian Miller, senior vice president, supply chain; Dave Norby, senior vice president, retail sales division; Rachel Cullen, president and CEO.
Ruiz Foods Denison management team
The Denison, Texas, management team, standing left to right: Brian Miller, senior vice president of supply chain; Rebeckah Flanagan, senior human resources manager; Jason Rainey, quality assurance manager; Mitch Martin, operations manager; David Owens, director of operations; and Don Geddings, maintenance manager. Sitting left to right: Robert Krugh, sanitation manager; Josh Poormohammadi, safety manager; Wendy Cook, plant controller; and Stacy Ball, warehouse manager.
Ruiz Foods chicken cheese flour taquitos
El Monterey Taquitos can be eaten as a snack, appetizer, side dish or even as a main entrée component with rice and beans.
Ruiz Foods Signature ham and cheese breakfast burrito
Ruiz Foods expanded its El Monterey brand to include the morning breakfast burrito, made with real ingredients like scrambled eggs, cheddar or Monterey jack cheese, sausage and fresh-baked flour tortillas.
Culinary Kitchen
Ruiz Foods opened the Rose Ruiz Innovation Center, equipped with test kitchens, a state-of-the-art sensory science center, analytical and micro labs, a pilot lab for scale up and a packaging innovation center.
breakfast burritos production conveyor
Ruiz Foods acquired the Denison, Texas, facility in 2005, which recently underwent a 55,000-square-foot expansion, including two new production lines, insulated manufacturing panels, glycol in the production area and the use of stainless steel from top down.
tortilla shells traveling out of conveyor
The tortilla line produces about 7,500 dozen tortillas an hour, and runs about 4-5 batches of dough an hour.
tortillas cooked
A dough chunker cuts the dough up into tortilla-shaped pieces
breakfast burritos exiting chiller
Here, breakfast burritos convey into a spiral freezer for less than an hour at between -20 and -50°F.
Brian Miller and MM look at freezer
Brian Miller, senior vice president of supply chain, shows Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ editor-in-chief Marina Mayer the freezer, which is set at between -20 and -50°F.
label machine
Ruiz Foods went beyond the common USDA/FSIS certifications to also receive BRC certification (pending as of press time) and an annual GMP/food safety certification from Silliker Laboratories Group.
breakfast burritos exit packaging
Packaged burritos travel under a metal detector and checkweigher and are then boxed up for distribution out of one of the plant’s five docks.
breakfast burritos in packaging enter freezer
Once frozen, the breakfast burritos travel into the packaging room, where a form-fill-seal machine encloses each burrito into plastic wrap for either single-serve sales or to be boxed in multi-packs.
breakfast burritos undergoing x-ray checks
El Monterey breakfast burritos come in single-serve and 4- and 12-packs.
packaging room
The Denison plant produces enough product, that “if placed end to end, would take you around the Earth four times,” says Brian Miller, senior vice president of supply chain.
El Monterey packaging up close
Ruiz Foods received Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ 2015 Frozen Foods Processor of the Year, an honor this company has received for the third time.