Using Bread Trays Beyond Bread: Tortillas, Bagels, Pastries, Donuts, and Food Service

Choose a tray for any product by four things measured on the product: its height, which sets the clearance you need; its footprint and spacing, which set how many fit without touching; its weight per loaded tray, which has to sit within the tray’s and dolly’s ratings; and whether it is wrapped, which decides how much the bottom matters for moisture, not whether the bottom matters at all. Keep one footprint across products where you can and change depth by product, so dollies and racks stay the same.

What does each product need from a tray?

Sources for the table: the four measurements are this guide’s framework; the product entries apply it and are this guide’s suggestions, not product-specific studies or published specifications. Test each product before you order.

The weight column is the same for every product because no published figure fits your product and load pattern. Weigh a fully loaded tray of your heaviest product, multiply by the trays in your tallest stack, and compare that with the dolly’s written rating.

How do you set clearance for products that are not loaves?

The same way as for bread: measure the tallest unit in its packaging, compare it with the clearance the maker states for each stacking position, and run a loaded-stack test with real product so you can see that the tray above does not touch it. Products with points and domes, such as croissants and topped donuts, are measured at their highest point, not their average. The method is set out in choosing tray depth by the product’s tallest point.

Shallow trays exist for this reason. ORBIS, for example, says on the page for its 3.5 inch NPL620B that its bun basket systems “are designed for the efficient flow of buns throughout the supply chain” (ORBIS, NPL620B). A deep tray used for a flat product carries air on every level of every dolly.

Which bottom do these products need?

The same rule as bread: if the product is wrapped when it goes in, moisture rarely decides the bottom, but support for the packs, strength and cleaning still do; if it goes in unwrapped and still warm, test a vented floor first, because it lets moisture leave the base. Wet toppings are the exception in the other direction: a glaze or icing that is still wet will drip through openings and onto the product below, so let it set, or use a solid or lined tray for that product. The reasoning, and how to judge a vented floor, is in deciding between vented and solid bottoms.

What changes when one fleet carries many products?

Three things: depths, allergens and weight.

• Depths. Keep one footprint so dollies, racks and trailer plans stay the same, and add depths only where a product needs them. Trays of different depths from the same model family may stack and lock together; test that before you plan to mix them on one dolly, and mark dollies by depth if they do not.
• Allergens. Sesame, nut, egg and dairy products travelling in the same fleet as plain bread make trays part of your allergen control. Dedicated, marked trays per allergen profile are the safer route; the rules are in dedicating and marking trays by allergen.
• Weight. A dolly stack that is fine with bread can exceed the dolly’s rating with bagels or dense flatbreads. Set the stack height per product, not per tray.

What changes when trays go to food service accounts?

The tray is the same; the stop is not. A restaurant, school kitchen or caterer receives, stores and returns trays differently from a store, and the clearance, bottom and weight checks above are only the start. What follows is this guide’s suggested practice for food service distribution; serving trays, tray-line trays and buffet display pieces are different equipment and outside this guide.

• The handoff. A kitchen delivery may arrive before opening, at a back door or into a walk-in, with nobody there to sign. Agree before the first drop where trays are left and how the count is confirmed, for example a photo at drop-off and a count on the next visit.
• Back-of-house storage. Empties in a kitchen can sit near floors, waste and cleaning chemicals. Ask the account to stage them in one agreed place, off the floor, and treat every tray back from a kitchen as a returned tray that goes through the full wash.
• Who owns the return. A kitchen has no reason to look after your trays unless the account terms give it one. Put the tray count, the balance you allow and any charge for trays not returned into those terms, as you would for a store.
• Reuse in the kitchen. Kitchen staff may unpack bread and put rolls back into the tray, or use empties for their own storage. If they place unpackaged food directly back into a tray, treat that tray as direct-contact equipment, whatever it carried on the truck, and wash and inspect it on that schedule. Since you cannot see what happens in each kitchen, ask the account, and put trays from kitchens that do this on the direct-contact schedule.
• Trays in front of customers. If a café displays unpackaged product in direct contact with the tray, the food-contact surface requirements adopted by that café’s retail jurisdiction may apply to the tray there, on top of the transport rules. The FDA Food Code is a model code, so what applies is the version the local jurisdiction has adopted. A tray under packaged product on a counter is not touching food.
• Mixed routes. On a route that serves both stores and kitchens, keep one tray model and one count sheet, but mark which stops are kitchens, so returns, washing and loss reports can show them separately.

What does a starter fleet for several products look like?

One footprint that fits your dollies and racks, in the fewest depths that clear your products, with a vented floor in your trial if any product goes in unwrapped and warm. Measure every product’s tallest point, weigh a full tray of each, and test a sample stack of each before ordering. Keep allergen products on dedicated, marked trays from the start. For what a commercial tray is and how this guide is organized, start from the guide’s overview of commercial bread trays.