Born during the Great Depression, when popcorn became America’s favorite affordable treat, Wyandot Snacks started as a humble popcorn company in Marion, Ohio. Decades later, they were popping at full throttle, producing over 25% of the world’s popcorn and even making Cracker Jack for Frito-Lay. Today, Wyandot continues that growth from a regional popcorn producer to a go-to co-manufacturer for some of the most recognized and fastest-growing snack brands in the U.S.
The business has always prided itself on its refusal to stay stagnant. Rather than sticking with the status quo, Wyandot has continually adapted, expanding its product offerings, shifting focus to meet evolving customer needs, and investing in new technologies to stay competitive in a fast-moving industry. Throughout their evolution as a business, they’ve chronicled their growth as a business at their local Wyandot Popcorn Museum, creating a visual representation of progress.
And that momentum continues. To keep up with growing demand and maintain the pace it’s sustained since 1936, Wyandot saw its next opportunity for optimization: automating its end-of-line production.
Automation Lets Wyandot Say “Yes” to Customers More Often
Today, Wyandot specializes in a wide range of extruded and baked snacks, from cereals and chips to popcorn. But producing such a diverse mix comes with operational challenges: frequent SKU changes, varying run sizes, and increasingly tight timelines from customers.
That pressure to produce became even more urgent with the recent addition of a major new customer, one that will require Wyandot to produce many millions of additional pounds of product. With labor gaps already straining production, Jaap Langenberg, CEO of Wyandot, found himself asking the essential question: How will we get all this product out the door on time with the labor we have?
To better serve high-volume customers who demand both precision and agility, Langenberg emphasized that automating manual palletizing was key to not only boosting productivity and closing labor gaps, but also taking care of the employees they have.
“The snack industry is moving faster and becoming more specialized,” Langenberg said. “Our investment in automation is about meeting those demands without compromising the values this company has upheld for nearly 90 years: quality, safety, community, and employee wellbeing.”
Taking the Strain Off Production Line Employees
Manual palletizing is one of the most physically demanding jobs on the production line, often resulting in injuries from repetitive bending, lifting, and twisting. That was a major factor in Wyandot’s decision to invest in automated palletizing, freeing employees from highly strenuous tasks and transitioning them into more value-added roles.
“We’re not automating to eliminate workers,” said Lori Roberts, Senior Executive Project Manager at Wyandot. “The goal is to take away the most physically demanding tasks so our team can focus on higher-level work that requires judgment, creativity, and oversight.”
Those employees previously assigned to manual packing and lifting roles will instead be trained to operate and maintain the new systems. Wyandot is also launching an automation certification program that provides hands-on training and creates a path for workers to grow into supervisory or technical roles.
Employees are excited. “People want to feel like they’re growing,” Roberts said. “Automation is giving them new pathways to do that within our company.”
When Automation Doesn’t Go as Planned: Why Wyandot Chose a Full Service Model
Automated palletizing isn’t Wyandot’s first foray into automation. About five years ago, the company invested in case packers to begin the transition. That project helped the team get comfortable with automation, understand its impact on their lines, and better manage growing productivity demands. Most importantly, it helped clarify what they truly needed from automation: flexibility to support a growing customer base.
That meant finding the right partner, and they did so with Formic’s Full Service Automation model. Rather than purchasing the equipment outright, Formic’s model allows Wyandot to implement systems quickly without any upfront capital investment, while providing ongoing technical and maintenance support. Additionally, as business needs naturally change and grow like they have for the past 90 years at Wyandot, Formic swaps equipment and manages redeployment.
“Having a partner like Formic that handles installation, maintenance, and equipment swapping allows us to stay focused on what we do best: Making great snacks,” Langenberg said. “It also reduces the risk and guesswork that can come with large-scale automation projects.”
The data collected from these automated systems is also laying the groundwork for smarter, more sustainable operations. With real-time visibility into energy usage, production bottlenecks, and scheduling efficiency, Wyandot is better positioned to meet rising customer expectations around transparency and carbon footprint, while optimizing long-term planning across the supply chain.
For a mid-sized manufacturer like Wyandot, where every investment must balance flexibility and scale, Full Service Automation has proven to be the right fit.
Looking Ahead: Wyandot Isn’t Done Innovating
Wyandot is already looking ahead, with plans to deploy new automated case packers in the future. The company’s leadership believes that the work being done today is laying the foundation for decades of future growth.
“Automation is not about replacing our legacy,” Langenberg said. “It’s about building on it. We’re taking everything that made Wyandot great, our people, our culture, our commitment to quality, and giving it the tools to thrive in a new era.”
As Wyandot steps into its next chapter, one thing is clear: automation is helping a factory floor in Marion keep up with its ever-evolving production.
Build on your legacy just like Wyandot. Discover how Formic’s Full Service Automation can help your team grow, your operation scale, and your customers stay happy here.
