Published June 2004

Lang cookin’ up high-tech kitchen equipment

The Herald/JENNIFER BUCHANAN Lang Manufacturing Co. President and CEO Dave Ek turns on a convection oven in the company’s test kitchen. Lang, which makes commercial ovens for clients ranging from Burger King to the U.S. Navy, recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.

By Eric Fetters
Herald Business Writer

When hungry customers get a warm cinnamon roll at Cinnabon or a hot, juicy hamburger at Jack in the Box, they can thank Everett-based Lang Manufacturing Co.

Ovens, grills and other kitchen equipment made by the 100-year-old company are found worldwide in everything from fast-food restaurants to cruise ships to U.S. Navy galleys.

While Lang’s name is little recognized by the public, it’s well-known in the food service industry.

“They’re highly revered in the industry for their quality and innovation,” said Keith Carpenter, president of Bellingham’s Wood Stone Corp., which makes stone-hearth ovens for the commercial market.

Dave Ek, Lang’s president and chief executive officer, said the company maintains its reputation by thoroughly checking everything before it’s shipped.

“Nothing leaves this building that hasn’t been tested 100 percent, multiple times,” he said as he stood inside Lang’s manufacturing space not far from the Boeing Co. plant.

While Lang doesn’t make ovens for the average residential kitchen, that’s where the company’s roots lie.

Frank Lang began constructing wood-burning stoves in the 1880s to keep miners warm as they camped during the Alaska gold rush. After incorporating in 1904, Lang’s company established a retail shop on First Avenue in Seattle that sold wood stoves for heating and cooking to residents of the growing area.

Then, in 1907, Lang developed its first patented wood stove for use on the SS Dix, a Navy transport. That began a relationship with the Navy that continues today, as Lang equipment helps prepare food for hungry sailors on the Everett-based USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Shoup and numerous other ships. It also headed Lang in a new direction.

“That kind of launched it from the residential side to the commercial side,” Ek said.

Since then, Lang’s name has been attached to some of the industry’s notable technological advances.

In the 1960s, it introduced the first electric convection oven. In the 1970s, a decade of tight oil supplies and energy conservation measures, Lang brought out an oven that turned on automatically when a plate was placed on the cooking rack. The 1980s saw it introduce the industry’s first double-sided griddle.

These days, Lang ovens include computerized controls that can be pre-programmed for ease of use, Ek said. That’s especially important in fast-food restaurants and supermarkets, where workers aren’t expected to be experts on the cooking and baking equipment.

“We try to make them as intuitive as possible,” Ek said.

The past few years have seen huge leaps in the computer programs used to control Lang’s ovens, Ek added.

The latest features that Lang’s customers have requested include the ability for the oven’s computerized controls to communicate over the Internet and with wireless devices. That would allow a manager of multiple restaurants, for example, to download information about how the ovens are working in each location.

After Lang’s start in Seattle, it was based for decades in Redmond. Members of the Lang family later gave way to a private ownership group.

In 1997, facing higher rent and the need to expand, the company leased a custom-built, 115,000-square-foot structure in the Seaway industrial area of southwest Everett. The move was a good one, said Kim McNeill, Lang’s director of human resources.

“We were able to really work a lot of the concepts we wanted into this space,” she said.

That includes a manufacturing process that’s different than the traditional assembly line. Workers are cross-trained to put together nearly all of Lang’s products. Except for the company’s huge, 2,200-pound rack ovens, all are built along one “demand flow” production line.

No product is built until after it is ordered. Lang’s employees, who are non-union, all work one shift: four 10-hour days a week. That schedule allows an extra few days for overtime work if the orders come in too fast, Ek said.

While Lang’s commercial ovens incorporate computers and advanced materials, they still start with the basics: sheets of stainless steel and aluminum. Workers use punch presses or a laser cutter to trim oven parts from the large metal sheets.

From there, the various parts are put together. Lang’s production line includes little automation. Its machine that cuts grooves in steel grill plates is older than most of the employees.

But that human attention to the assembly and small differences from the competition help Lang succeed, Ek said. For example, the company uses grill plates that are thicker than those used by competitors because they maintain heat more evenly.

With a client base ranging from Mrs. Field’s cookies to public school kitchens to casual dining restaurants, Lang tries to make the equipment fit the special needs of customers. For instance, deep fryers made for cruise lines and Navy ships are specially made to prevent hot oil from spilling when waves toss the ships to and fro.

Even as the company passes the century mark since its incorporation, it is enjoying expanding markets with the construction of new military and cruise ships, including new Coast Guard vessels that will need cooking equipment, Ek said.

“The industry has suffered like others in the past few years, but we’ve been able to grow,” Ek said. “We’ve been able to be in the right place at the right time.”

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