Customer Success Story: Pecan Deluxe Candy Company

About Pecan Deluxe

Pecan Deluxe is and always has been a family-owned business. The founder’s pioneering spirit continues to guide the company’s ongoing success. Pecan Deluxe started as an ice cream shop but decided in 1960 to branch out and began selling their innovative ingredients to other food companies. Now Pecan Deluxe is a massive player in the inclusions, candy, and confections industry.

Though their business has changed quite a lot over the years they have always cared about quality. Pecan Deluxe is the perfect example of a business with a food safety culture. From ownership to production, everyone at Pecan Deluxe cares about hygiene and food safety. Food Safety & Quality Assurance experts work collaboratively to ensure the safety and quality of all Pecan Deluxe products. 

Pecan Deluxe ensures food safety by automating hygiene processes with CleanTech^®

Since 2002, Pecan Deluxe Candy Company and Meritech partnered to improve food safety practices. At the beginning of the hygiene partnership, Pecan Deluxe had several classic Meritech handwashing stations installed in their hygiene zone. After seeing the success of the handwashing stations Pecan Deluxe added Automated Boot Scrubbers to their hygiene zone. This was the beginning of the "sanitize in, scrub out" method, where employees sanitize their footwear before entering the production zone and then walking through the boot scrubber and scrubbing their footwear when leaving the production zone. 

Earlier this year, Pecan Deluxe added several new CleanTech^® EVO Systems to their hygiene zones. The new EVO stations provide the clinically-validated 99.9% pathogen removal associated with all Meritech CleanTech^® equipment, but has several new features to meet Pecan Deluxe’s needs. The EVO Three has the Boot Dip enhancement, allowing employees to sanitize their footwear before entering the production area.

In 2021, Pecan Deluxe won the Food Quality and Safety Award for Large Business. This award was presented to them for their unwavering focus on continuous improvement to employee training programs and building strong food safety plans. In a quote from Food Quality and Safety, “The automated hand-and boot-washing system, along with more training focused on personal sanitation, led to a significant improvement in employees using the system. The current level of compliance based on hand swabs is 98.3%.”

Pecan Deluxe and Meritech Partner in Hygiene Excellence for Over 20 Years to Ensure the Highest Standards in Food Safety Full Case Study

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