dutchland foods blog
At Dutchland Foods, we believe that nothing matters more than ensuring our team members go home safe at the end of every day. That commitment comes to life through the work of Dan, our Plant Safety Manager, who brings both experience and passion to the job. We recently sat down with him to learn more about his background, daily responsibilities, and what motivates him to keep safety at the forefront.
A Path Into Plant Safety
Before joining Dutchland Foods, Dan worked in safety roles at several other companies, with much of his background rooted in metal manufacturing. While that may sound like a very different industry, Dan explains that many of the principles of plant safety remain the same across industries: staying alert, ensuring equipment is safe, and making training a priority.
No “Typical” Day
Ask Dan what a typical day looks like, and his answer is simple: there isn’t one. “That’s one of the things I like most about this role — you never know how the day will go,” he shares. If an accident happens, that takes top priority. On other days, you might find him leading safety committee meetings, conducting training sessions, or performing inspections.
Everyday Safety Practices
From checking that fire extinguishers are charged and emergency lights are working, to ensuring first aid kits are fully stocked, Dan’s daily responsibilities are wide-ranging. His role also includes managing workers’ comp claims and inspecting new machinery — whether purchased or built in-house — to make sure it meets safety standards before use.
Why Training Matters
One of the biggest misconceptions about plant safety, Dan explains, is that training isn’t that important. In reality, “Training is HUGE in order to minimize chaos in emergency situations.” Dutchland Foods invests heavily in training so that when emergencies arise, employees know exactly what to do.
Small Changes, Big Impact
Sometimes even small safety changes can have a major effect. For example, when Dutchland Foods updated its policy to provide employees with dedicated shoes, slip-and-fall incidents dropped dramatically. It’s proof that thoughtful procedures make a real difference.
Balancing Responsibilities
As both the Plant Safety Manager and Sanitation Manager, Dan admits that time management is one of his biggest challenges. “I just try my best to get things done in the time I have,” he says. Staying organized and focusing on priorities helps him keep both roles running smoothly.
Staying Current
To keep up with evolving regulations and best practices, Dan works closely with Dutchland’s workers’ comp insurance provider, which provides ongoing updates and resources.
Advice for New Employees
For anyone just starting at Dutchland Foods, Dan’s message is clear: “Safety is super important and should never be sacrificed. Play it safe and go home the same way you arrived.”
The Reward of the Role
At the end of the day, what’s most rewarding for Dan is simple: “Just knowing that I am doing the best I can to keep everyone safe.”
Fun Fact
Outside of the plant, you might catch Dan on stage at a karaoke night. “I’m not great, but I have fun with it,” he laughs.
Safety may not always be glamorous, but it’s the foundation of everything we do at Dutchland Foods. Thanks to the dedication of Dan and his commitment to keeping our workplace safe, we’re not just producing high-quality food — we’re also ensuring a secure and supportive environment for everyone on our team.
Food safety doesn’t just happen. At Dutchland Foods, it’s a result of constant learning, adapting, and teamwork. While our products may look simple on the outside, the systems behind them are anything but. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how we navigate industry changes and keep our safety standards among the best.
📋 Adapting to New Laws and Ingredients
Recently, laws regarding food dyes and ingredients have shifted—especially with the MAHA movement. States are starting to ban certain additives, which impacts everything from our formulations to our packaging. Our R&D and Food Safety teams work hand-in-hand to:
• Find ingredient replacements
• Communicate with clients
• Stay compliant without compromising on quality
It’s complex, but we’re committed to getting it right.
🌎 How We Stay Informed
Regulations are constantly evolving, and staying current is non-negotiable. Our team stays on top of things by:
• Subscribing to daily alerts from the USDA and FDA
• Attending food safety webinars
• Following GFSI audits and industry publications
Staying informed helps us stay ahead.
⚠️ Real Challenges. Real Solutions.
One of the biggest challenges today? Different states with different rules. What’s acceptable in one market may be banned in another. Our approach?
• Cross-team collaboration (R&D, purchasing, management, food safety)
• Regular audits and documentation reviews
• Constant flexibility and innovation
It’s not always easy—but it keeps us sharp.
🧠 Training That Sticks
New employees don’t just jump into production. Every team member receives:
• GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) training before they step on the floor
• Ongoing monitoring by FS and Production Managers
• Annual refresher courses to keep food safety top of mind
We foster a culture where asking questions and double-checking is encouraged—and that starts from day one.
🌟 The Dutchland Difference
So what makes us different? For one, our food safety team works hand-in-hand with management. We’re not siloed or sidelined—we’re supported. Whether it’s resources, staffing, or time, Dutchland Foods gives us what we need to uphold the highest standards.
Oh, and did we mention? We’ve scored perfect audits year after year. 😉
At Dutchland Foods, food safety is a promise we keep every day—for our clients, our consumers, and our community. If you’d like to see how that promise shows up in every pastry, reach out to our team or explore our product line.
At Dutchland Foods, food safety isn’t just a department—it’s the heartbeat of our operation. Every pastry we produce reflects the care, commitment, and high standards we live by daily. When we talk about food safety, we’re not just talking about meeting requirements. We’re talking about protecting our brand, our customers, and the trust we’ve built over decades.
💛 What Food Safety Means to Us
To us, food safety means confidence. Confidence in the product we make. Confidence for the consumers who enjoy our pastries at home or through our partners in fundraising, private label, or frozen retail channels. It’s about safeguarding the reputation of our brand—and the brands we serve—by ensuring every product is crafted to the highest standards of safety and quality.
🧼 Daily Practices That Keep Our Products Safe
Behind every batch is a set of non-negotiables:
• Proper handwashing – because it takes clean hands to make clean food.
• Allergen management – even trace amounts can cause harm, so we take it seriously.
• Rigorous sanitation – daily cleaning schedules and procedures ensure our equipment is always production-ready.
• Metal detection – every product passes through to catch anything that shouldn’t be there.
These aren’t just tasks—they’re habits. Built into every shift, every product, every day.
🛡️ Protecting Our Clients’ Brands
Whether we’re producing for a national grocery chain or a local fundraiser, our clients trust us to deliver a safe, consistent product. Our food safety team plays a critical role in protecting those brands by:
• Preventing allergen cross-contact
• Conducting twice-daily walkthroughs of all production and storage areas
• Maintaining traceability and documentation for every product batch
🔎 What You Might Not See
What most people don’t realize is the sheer amount of time, effort, and brainpower behind food safety. From identifying potential hazards to building systems that prevent them, our food safety team works proactively—not just reactively. It’s constant vigilance, strategic thinking, and collaboration at every level.
Want to learn more about how Dutchland Foods can support your brand with safe, high-quality pastries? Contact us today to explore partnership opportunities rooted in trust, consistency, and care.
In 1992, Pete and Susan Van Wyhe opened the doors of Dutchland Frozen Foods for the first time. Their first product? A hand-braided Danish pastry — carefully, skillfully, and patiently prepared with the kind of time and the right mentality that you only find in a small-town kitchen.
With the help and guidance of Pete’s parents, Wayne and Jennie, and a lot of faith, the Van Wyhes got to work in a renovated bank building on Main Street in Lester, Iowa. It was not pretty, but it had heart — and soon enough, the pastries spoke for themselves. The rich, buttery flavor and from-scratch quality every braid contained was unlike any other, and word got around. Customers loved it.
Success Based on Core Values
As news spread and sales flourished, Dutchland’s production capacity went along with it. In 2003, the Dutchland team expanded the facility by adding an additional 9,000 square feet — just a representation of the incredibly rapid growth of the company and the plan for the future. The growth in quantity also meant an ability to scale production, but their commitment to product quality never changed. From well-sourced ingredients to small batch testing, quality has always taken precedence. Dutchland ventured into fundraising in 2006 with the now beloved Pastry Puffins — light, flaky puff pastries stuffed with fruit or cheese topped with sugar crystals. In 2017, they launched ButterHearts, a new fundraising staple made with delicate layers of artisan puff pastry. Each product embodies their core values: baking with care, serving with purpose, and treating everyone like family.
Innovation with Tradition
Dutchland has grown into a nationally respected supplier of clean-label frozen pastries, hundreds of products in total and over 80 unique creations offered including the Pastry Puffin and ButterHeart, to thousands of foodservice operators, retailers, and private label clients across the country, in the decades since their humble beginnings.
The facility has evolved significantly to what you see today. There are multiple production lines, large volume blast freezers, a spiral proofer, and a full R&D department and still in Lester. Dutchland has received a BRC AA rating for food safety, launched private label partnerships, and in 2022 acquired Pappy’s Pie Dough to strengthen their grocery offerings.
How unique is that, considering the continued expansion are still grounded in the fact that it’s a family-run business. Now in the fourth generation, the Van Wyhe family continues to propel the company into new challenges with the same grit, faith, and family-first spirit that started it all.
A Pastry with A Story
Dutchland’s success has never been about the product alone — it is who and what comes with the product. It’s about the people involved: the employees who roll out the dough and the customers who receive the products and bake them fresh. Every part of the company reflects the legacy of Dutchland — tradition, trust, and taste.
Every pastry that ships out of the Dutchland facility, reflects a tiny piece of that legacy:
✅ Small-town craftsmanship
✅ Family-led principles
✅ Clean label
✅ Not sacrificing quality
Because Dutchland doesn’t make frozen pastries. They make food that feeds families, raises funds, builds communities, and brings people together.
Would you like to learn more about the products we offer or simply start a conversation to work together?
Let’s have a conversation; the next chapter of our story could start with you.
Why food safety and transparency are built into everything we do.
At Dutchland Foods, we’re proud to announce we’ve once again received a BRC AA rating – the highest possible food safety certification given to food manufacturers. While it is a significant achievement, it is just that for us, a significant achievement, not just a notable piece of paper to showcase for all to see. It represents how we conduct our business, our values and quality perspectives on every single batch of frozen pastries we manufacture.
Food safety is not an annual practice to us, it is inherent in our culture. We understand that food safety begins before a frozen pastry is packaged, from the production line to the packaging stage, we hold ourselves to a higher standard, and I believe we should.
The Clean Behind the Scenes
You can’t make high-quality pastries without a high-quality edible production environment. We’ve invested in many ways to ensure our facility works as hard as every person that steps foot in it including:
• Dedicated, insulated washroom solely designed for daily sanitization of equipment and utensils
• Color-coded sanitization systems to evade cross contamination of different zones
• Clearly marked, purpose built production zones that keep workflows clean and managed
• Daily cleaning procedures and quality control methods from start to finish
From cleaning floors, sanitizing trays or ensuring dough lines operational is running at peak, we take pride in the cleanliness of our facility that is directly correlated to the quality of our product.
Clean Ingredients as well
Of course, what goes into the product matters just as much. As a promise, our cleanliness doesn’t stop at the floor! it’s built into the dough.
Dutchland Foods is a manufacturer of clean label frozen pastries with simple easy to read ingredients. Many of our top sellers do not have:
• Any artificial dyes or preservatives
• Great quality European style butter.
• Convenience to bake without compromising taste or quality.
From croissants, danishes, filled Kouign Amann and even our Puffins as well as many others, we offer clean indulgence that the consumers and foodservice can feel good about offering to the public.
Safety you can taste
As a private label pastry partner and wholesale frozen bakery, we know our customers rely on us for more than the product, they are trusting their brand reputation with us. This is why we have packaged all of our frozen croissants, pie dough and specialty pastries with not only control measures, but also certified food safety practices recognized around the world.
The BRC AA rating is only one part of the plan, but an important part. This rating of our facilities process and policy is recognition of the system that we have designed and built around consumers and customers safety, integrity, and food safety first. This is not something we will ever back down from!
Let’s Build Something Clean Together!
Anyway we can support you to launch your retail pastry brand, scale a food service program, or establish a new bakery concept, Dutchland Foods is your clean, safe, consistent fantastic frozen baked goods partner manufactured in facilities as consistent as the product we deliver.
We are pleased to announce that Dutchland Foods has been designated “Small Business of the Week” by U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, as part of her story series highlighting Iowa’s great small businesses.
Senator Ernst’s press release notes Dutchland’s commitment to producing frozen pastries of the highest quality and acknowledges our role as a local employer in the heart of northwest Iowa. Dutchland is a family owned and operated business steeped in the community, so this is a wonderful honor and a strong affirmation of the important role that small businesses can play in local economies.
We are thankful for the honor and proud of our team who continue to be passionate, precise, and produce quality pastries.
Read Senator Ernst’s full announcement here.
Thank you to our partners, customers, and team that have helped to build a great Dutchland Foods. Here’s to growth – and more Kouign Amanns!
When distributors are sourcing pastries for their foodservice or retail partners, they’re looking for more than just a product — they’re looking for a manufacturer that understands the logistics, supports the relationship, and delivers consistent results. At Dutchland, we’ve built long-term partnerships with distributors across the country by doing exactly that.
Here’s what keeps them coming back.
1. Low-Lift Onboarding That Saves Time
We make it easy to get up and running. Whether you’re integrating a single pastry item or a full product line, our onboarding process is designed to be fast, efficient, and tailored to your needs. From product specs to shipping coordination, we help make the transition seamless so you can start selling quickly.
2. Customization That Works at Scale
Our private label program gives you flexibility where it matters. Distributors can work with us to customize packaging, portion size, product type, and more — without the headaches of building from scratch. This makes it easy to offer your clients something exclusive, branded, and on-trend.
3. Consistency You Can Count On
Our reputation is built on delivering the same high-quality product, every time. With decades of laminated dough experience and carefully refined production systems, we’re known for reliability — not just in what we make, but in how we support the teams we work with.
4. Products That Serve Multiple Channels
Whether you’re supplying schools, cafés, hotel chains, or grocery programs, our lineup of clean-label, frozen pastries is built to flex across categories. From turnovers and croissants to kouign amann and specialty doughs, we help you meet demand without expanding your SKU list too far.
5. A Team That Treats You Like a Partner
At Dutchland, we prioritize relationships. Distributors aren’t just clients — they’re collaborators. That means clear communication, product support when needed, and a shared goal of helping your customers succeed.
From ease of setup to long-term dependability, Dutchland helps distributors offer more — with less stress. Want to talk about private label or sample options? We’re happy to start the conversation.
Every pastry program looks a little different. Some focus on clean-label, minimal-ingredient offerings. Others are centered on indulgent, dessert-style bakes. And many fall somewhere in the middle—balancing quality, shelf life, and performance with brand standards or nutritional goals.
At Dutchland, we understand that no two clients are alike. That’s why flexibility is built into everything we do—from formulation to packaging.
Clean Label or Classic—You Choose
We offer a wide range of clean-label pastries, made without artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. But we also understand that some programs require added functionality—whether for extended shelf life, higher-volume production, or specific ingredient profiles. That’s why we work with our clients to determine the right fit, offering both clean-label options and more traditional formulations based on what works best for their customers.
Formulation and Size Customization
Need a mini version of a best-seller? A specific weight or portion size? No problem. We regularly adjust product specs for private label customers and foodservice distributors who need a format tailored to their menu, packaging, or operational setup. Our laminated dough expertise allows us to scale these changes without sacrificing quality or performance.
Private Label + Packaging Solutions
In addition to product customization, we also offer private label support—including custom packaging formats, labeling, and co-branding options. Whether you’re a national retailer or a regional distributor, we’ll work with you to present the product in a way that aligns with your brand.
Partnership Over One-Size-Fits-All
Our goal isn’t just to deliver great pastries—it’s to help you build a program that works. We’re here to ask questions, adjust as needed, and find a solution that hits the mark across quality, price, and customer experience.
Whether you’re looking for a clean-label croissant, a ready-to-bake kouign amann, or a custom-size turnover with your brand’s name on it, Dutchland is built to help you make it happen.
Choosing the right pastry manufacturer isn’t just about finding a supplier — it’s about finding a partner you can count on. At Dutchland, we’ve spent decades refining our process, building relationships, and delivering consistent quality to bakeries, cafés, and grocery programs across the country. Whether you’re scaling up or seeking a more dependable source, here’s why Dutchland might be the right fit.
1. The Quality of Small-Batch, The Capacity of Large-Scale
We’re built to grow with you. While we can handle national distribution and private label programs, our roots are in small-batch baking — and it shows in the care we take with every product. Our goal is to offer scalable solutions without losing the quality that defines artisanal pastry.
2. Laminated Dough Is What We Do
Croissants. Danish. Kouign Amann. Turnovers. Laminated dough is our specialty, and we’ve been doing it for over 30 years. Our process includes real butter, and precise sheeting — resulting in consistent lift, texture, and flavor with every batch.
3. Flexible Frozen Formats That Work For You
From pre-proofed to ready-to-bake, our frozen bakery products are designed to meet your operational needs. Whether you’re running a single storefront or supplying multiple locations, we help streamline production while preserving the handmade look and feel your customers expect.
4. Reliable Fulfillment and Customer Support
We take partnerships seriously. That means delivering on time, staying communicative, and offering support when it matters. We’re not just a name on a box — we’re a team you can reach out to when you need answers, adjustments, or insight.
5. A Partner That Understands the Pressure Behind the Case
We’ve worked with businesses at every scale — from local cafés to major chains — and we understand what it takes to keep a pastry program running. When you work with Dutchland, you’re gaining a team that knows your challenges and is here to help you solve them.
Dutchland isn’t just a pastry manufacturer. We’re a partner in your success — with the expertise, reliability, and flexibility to help your program grow.
We’re beyond excited to announce that Dutchland Foods is officially going international! As a trusted wholesale premium pastries provider, our bakery products are now delighting taste buds around the globe. One pastry, in particular, is becoming a favorite among businesses seeking unique bakery items wholesale—the filled Kouign Amann.
The Kouign Amann: A Classic with a Twist
If you’re not yet familiar with this irresistible pastry, the Kouign Amann (pronounced “Queen-ah-mahn”) is a traditional Breton pastry known for its caramelized, buttery layers. Often described as a croissant’s rich cousin, it perfectly balances sweetness and crunch.
At Dutchland Foods, we saw the opportunity to create something truly exceptional for companies looking to elevate their pastry offerings. Our skilled R&D team blends tradition with innovation, creating our filled Kouign Amann wholesale, a pastry that honors its roots while adding a deliciously modern twist—perfect for cafes, bakeries, and specialty markets worldwide.
Why Businesses Choose Our Filled Kouign Amann
• Flavor Innovation: As a premier custom pastries supplier, we offer flavors ranging from blueberry cream and cinnamon to seasonal favorites that can be customized to your company’s needs, ideal for your private label pastries program.
• Universal Appeal: Whether in a cozy European café or bustling Asian market, our pastries bring a luxurious, comforting experience with every bite, enhancing your brand’s gourmet appeal.
Seamless International Logistics: Your Global Pastry Supplier
Expanding your product lineup internationally can seem daunting, but Dutchland Foods is more than a supplier—we’re your logistics partner. We dedicate time and energy to exploring global pastry logistics, ensuring compliance with international standards, managing shipping documentation, and coordinating smooth deliveries. Our expert shipping team makes global distribution effortless, so you can focus on your customers and growth.
Bring a Global Hit to Your Business
As a reliable bakery products distributor, we’re dedicated to supporting your business’s global ambitions. Our filled Kouign Amann exemplifies how we transform classic pastry traditions into innovative, customizable solutions for businesses around the world.
Are you ready to expand your offerings with delicious gourmet baked goods for cafes and customized bakery solutions? Contact us today to discover how we can support your global growth.
We’re thrilled to share our passion for premium pastries on an international scale and can’t wait to help your business reach new heights!
