Your Health
At Portofino Bakery, we are very conscious of the fact that your well-being starts with a healthy diet and that, as a supplier of the most basic of food staples, we have a responsibility to go above and beyond to ensure that we make healthy and nutritious products using only the best quality ingredients. Moreover, we spend much energy, time and thought in developing strategies and processes that eliminate possible cross-contamination within our facility. You could say that our mission is not just making healthy and delicious products, but being proactive in safeguarding our customers from any possible health threats.
It starts with the suppliers we use. They are scrutinized not simply in terms of the quality of their ingredients, but in equal measure as to whether or not they adhere to proper food safety standards. Once the ingredients reach our facility, they are stored in a separate, self-contained storage area or transferred into special, food-safe ingredient bins. Equipment and utensils used in the production process are sanitized after usage before being stored away, and once a day a cleaning crew comes in and gives the entire bakery a very thorough cleaning from top to bottom. Temperatures in storage areas, coolers and freezers are monitored on a daily basis. Portofino has hired an independent inspection agency to monitor our facility for any contaminates on a monthly basis. We also receive daily health hazard alerts and updates from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, enabling us to respond immediately to any possible food safety threats. All Portofino employees — bakers, packagers, delivery drivers, cleaners — have current Food Safe certification.
The above are merely the basics of our Food Safety Strategy. Portofino is a trans-fat compliant bakery, using only safe and naturally occurring trans-fat acids found in dairy products (cheese, butter). We have made significant inroads in reducing the sodium content in our products. We also commissioned NutraSun Foods Ltd. to develop an all-natural dough conditioner to replace the synthetic dough conditioners universally used by commercial bakeries. We are very pleased to announce that as of August 2009, Portofino exclusively uses a natural dough conditioner (organic wheat flour and enzymes) in its bread products (with the exception of our Artisan breads and buns, which contain no conditioners at all).
In an effort to offer healthier product choices, Portofino has converted some of our recipes from white flour to whole grain flour (whole grain flour is milled using the entire grain kernel, thus ensuring the preservation of all nutrients). We can now offer our customers whole grain hamburger buns, hotdog buns, Kaisers, and several bread loaves. Furthermore, we are developing and testing new organic and gluten-free breads, buns and cookies, which we hope to take into production within the next 6 months.
It is our strong desire to be a local leader in healthy and delicious bakery products and we therefore appreciate any comments or suggestions you might have that will help us improve upon our existing offerings.
