North Carolina farms grow lots of soybeans, tobacco, and sweet potatoes. Wheat may not come to mind when you think of N.C. agriculture, but a popular snack couldn't be made without it.
The Kellanova bakery is tucked into an office park, just off Weston Parkway in Cary. Inside, a staff of about 700 works in 12-hour shifts to produce Cheez-It crackers.
Ribbons of dough roll through 300-foot-long ovens before being stamped into squares and funneled into plastic bags.
Kellanova, a snack-focused spinoff of cereal-maker Kellogg's, produces 8,000 pounds of crackers an hour at its Cary bakery, one of two in the U.S. (the other is in Kansas City, Kansas).
"It started out as a sandwich cracker plant that made cookies and sandwich crackers," bakery director Steve Surovec said on a recent media tour.
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