A grooved curling roll, set at an oblique angle across the belt, forms the dough into a continuous spiral. The dough roll continues forward passing under a pressure belt moving synchronously with the makeup line. The belt's light pressure keeps the roll together and imparts a slightly oblong shape to the roll's cross section. The next stage passes the continuous roll through a guillotine cutter that separates it into individual Honey Bun pieces. Long forming table runs separate the rolling and cutting stages because this dough needs time to relax between moulding operations.
Once cut, the individual pieces encounter a quickly moving transfer conveyor. This pulls the dough over, so one cut edge lays on the bottom. The transfer conveyor ends in a transpositor that drops the dough pieces, row by row, into proofer trays.
Honey Buns travel a 1,600-ft serpentine path through the Belshaw proofer. Proofing time averages 31 minutes for this product. The Belshaw system automatically controls the temperature and humidity within the proofer as well as the speed of the chain carrying the proofer trays.
Proofed buns leave this system by flipping over onto a series of thin string-like plastic belts. The belts diverge slightly to distribute the proofed dough pieces across the fill width of the Belshaw automated fryer.
The conveyor fryer uses a flighted chain, traveling just under the surface of the hot fat, to move dough pieces forward. Halfway down the length of the fryer, a flipper turns the Honey Buns over one row at a time so they fry evenly on both sides.

MADE TODAY, SOLD TOMORROW Oxford's shipping room is tied by computer to Philadelphia for order management. From here products go to Wilmington, Del., for dispersal from Tasty's distribution center there and to Tasty's main manufacturing facility in Philadelphia.
"We ship every day," Mr. Pixler said. "Our products get to the store only a few hours old instead of days old."
"All Tasty branded product is fresh," Ms. Grim said. "Made today, it's on the grocer's shelf tomorrow."
Although Tasty has offered Honey Buns for several years, Oxford was the first company-owned site to make these items.
"We had to learn together how to make Honey Buns," Mr. Pixler said.
For start-up, the company brought in its staff three weeks ahead of time. For two weeks, classroom sessions in the morning alternated with hands-on work and sanitation training in the afternoon. Vendors provided training for equipment operation. Ingredient suppliers and Philadelphia staff handled training in formulating and quality assurance.
"Those weeks of training helped us get the product right," he continued. "And everybody on the line has to be a quality assurance person under our method."