Meet Hugo, Hanan’s Newest “Employee”

Hanan Products is excited to announce the appointment of its newest employee, Hugo - who prefers we don’t use his last name.

Moving and stacking heavy boxes isn’t an easy job, but Hugo never even breaks a sweat – even when he’s stacking 2,000 heavy cases in a day! He is always ready and able to help Hanan team members and has an endless supply of energy.

If you haven’t already guessed it, Hugo is Hanan’s new robot named after a retired, 30-year employee whose favorite job was stacking boxes on pallets for shipping.

The new robot is fast, accurate, and efficient and alleviates (human) members of the team from having to do this challenging work. Hugo takes finished product from one of the plant’s numerous conveyor belts, boxes weighing almost 40 lbs., stacks, and palletizes Hanan’s tasty products. This new technology makes pallets more structurally sound and uniform for storage and shipping. While no jobs were eliminated at Hanan, we reassigned staff to other higher level, more important tasks to meet the high demand for our wholesale dessert whipped toppings, fillings, and icings business.

“The addition of Hugo to our facility has definitely added efficiency and just in time,” said Paul Hanan. “With the world opening up and more people attending gatherings, celebrations, and events, our distributors, bakery customers, and supermarket clientele are seeing significant demand for Hanan’s products. We’re in a period of growth that’s exhilarating, and Hugo was custom designed to perform the exact work needed to meet the needs of our existing and new customers.”

Over the last decade, to ensure fast delivery times and unmatched service, Paul and Ryan Hanan have modernized our facilities through technology and advances in food science. Our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility includes two enormous, minus-15-degree freezers (the size of two-story buildings) and a refrigerator the size of a large parking lot.

In October, Paul and Ryan, who head this bakery products’ tech initiative, will also be adding a new modern packing machine, with even more enhancements to come in the future.

Learn more about Hugo and our robotics program at bake Magazine.