Bob,
I have detailed below what I have found to date about the Jet’s operation and its pizzas. (Note: there are several edits to this post that should be noted as the post is read and studied since they clarify and update certain matters and also address dead links.)
The starting point for my recent research on this subject was the Jet’s video at
That supplemented what I found through my earlier research on the Jet’s pizzas.
The Jet’s Company. The company has its headquarters in Sterling Heights, MI with 194 stores, with 16 more scheduled for opening. There are 141 stores in Michigan alone, with six more on the way. The Michigan connection is a dominant one in the Jet’s video referenced above and ties in with some of the information provided below.
The Jet's Square Pans. Based on information I uncovered when starting this project, I was told that the Jet pan sizes were 10” x 10” (small), 13” x 15” (large), and 15” x 18” (extra large). There is no medium square pan size. Since the Jet’s pans appear to have tapered sides, I can’t say where the above measurements were taken but that is something that can be determined by taking measurements of purchased square pizzas from Jet’s. After doing a fair amount of Google searching looking for pans with the above dimensions, and coming up empty, I concluded that they must be custom made for Jet’s. However, this shouldn’t deter us from the task at hand. If we are able to determine the thickness factor of a typical Jet’s dough skin that is placed in a given size pan, it should be possible to come up with a dough formulation for essentially any other size pan. The pans used at Jet’s appear to be steel rather than aluminum but it is possible that the pans are seasoned or dark anodized aluminum pans. There are not that many sources of square/rectangular steel pans. P.A. Products, which is not that far from the Jet’s headquarters, sells steel square/rectangular pans to the trade (see
http://www.paprod.com/pans.html) but not in the sizes used in Jet’s stores. A search on the forum for steel pans, including blue steel pans, will turn up other sources of such pans but not in the sizes used in Jet’s stores. [For an important update on the Jet's pan sizes and source, see EDIT 6 below.]
The Jet’s Pizza Dough. The Jet’s pizza dough is made daily in the Jet’s stores. From what I was able to determine, the dough can be used the same day and any dough beyond that needed for that day to fill orders can be held overnight in a cooler and used the next day. After the second day, any unused dough is apparently discarded. Apparently not all Jet's stores follow that procedure. According to the article at
http://plymouth-mi.patch.com/articles/super-bowl-sunday-the-big-game-means-big-business-for-plymouth-pizzerias, one MI Jet's store discards the prior day's dough when making the new dough (note that the new dough is made at around 9 AM for a noontime store opening). The mixer shown in the Jet’s video appears to be a Hobart mixer such as shown at
https://web.archive.org/web/20101206071145/http://www.nnysupply.com/mixers/l800.pdf.
I was able to determine that the ingredients used to make the dough for the square pizzas are flour, water, salt, sugar, oil and yeast. I found independent confirmation of this list of ingredients at page 35 of the Northville (MI) public school ingredients list and nutritional information document at
http://www.northville.k12.mi.us/district/foodservice/pdfs/MSIngred.pdf. It is quite common for school districts to require ingredients and nutrition information for any products sold to it by outside vendors. Jet’s has several programs that cater to businesses, schools and school lunch programs (e.g., see
http://www.solake.org/FoodService/docs/menu_MS_201011.pdf). If I had to guess, I would say that the types of pizzas sold by Jet’s to school lunch programs are square pizzas. I base this on the fact that Jet’s catering menus, at least the several I found online (e.g., see
https://order.jetspizza.com/Menu.aspx?T=c&RestaurantID=4e88d34e-0059-467a-b35f-0ca1df188943), were limited to square/party tray type pizzas (
http://web.archive.org/web/20130808064634/http://jetspizza.com/menu/item/27). Again, if I had to guess, the ingredients used to make pizzas for school programs are perhaps the same as used in the Jet’s stores. It does not make a lot of sense to have a special dough formulation for only school lunch programs.
In addition to the dough used to make the square pizzas, there appears to be a second type of dough used to make the round NY style pizzas sold at Jet’s stores. As noted below, the flour used for the NY style dough is apparently different than that used to make the dough for the square pizzas.
If my analysis on the Jet’s dough is correct, it suggests that your dough formulation doesn’t fit the parameters of the Jet’s dough formulation based on the list and sequencing of ingredients (by weight) discussed above.
As noted in the Nutrition/Allergens section of the Jet’s website (
http://jetspizza.com/), at
http://jetspizza.com/pdf/allergeninformation-20151030.pdf, the oil used in the dough for the square pizzas is corn oil. Soybean oil is apparently used with the “thin crust flour”, quite likely as part of the flour blend used to make the round pizzas. This would suggest that any oil used in the square pans is corn oil. Previously, in Reply 6 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=8247.msg71260#msg71260, I noted that the Allergen information at the time said that Red Star active dry yeast (ADY) was used. Normally, one does not treat dry yeast as an allergen, so that might explain its absence in the current Allergens information. The Jet's video shows the yeast going into the mixer bowl before the water. The usual way of rehydrating ADY is to mix it in warm water. Although instant dry yeast (IDY) can be rehydrated in water, it is usually added to the flour instead. For our purposes, I think I would be inclined to go with ADY and use warm water.
I should also note that there are gaps in the Jet's video. For example, a pitcher of water would not be enough to hydrate 50 pounds of flour. You would need gallons. Also, I suspect that there is more than one can of Jet Fuel that goes into the mixer bowl before diluting it with a can of water.
The Flour and Other Jet’s Ingredients. I found a document (The Bulk Gourmet) that is highly unusual because the company behind it (
http://www.thebulkgourmet.com/) is in the Barbados (Roatan), but the document, at
https://web.archive.org/web/20090730144935/http://www.thebulkgourmet.com/catalogs/food_kitchen_laundry.pdf, lists several Jet’s products, including Jet’s Pizza FLOUR UNBLCHD “PZZA SQ” 50# JETS (at page 61), FLOUR HI-GLUTEN “PZZA RND” 50# JETS (also at page 61), SEASONING PIZZA SCE 12-26.7Z CASTELLA (at page 114), and SAUCE PIZZA PREP 6-10 JETS (at page 109). If you enter Jet’s in the search box of that document, the search will turn up many other food products and supplies, including pepperoni, wings and other chicken-based products, used by Jet’s in its stores. BTW, the “Castella” reference above is to Castella Imports, at
http://www.castella.com/Products/Spices-Seasonings.aspx. Castella prepares proprietary blends of herbs and seasonings for various end users. It does not sell directly to the public. In the Jet’s video, it will be noted that the herbs/seasoning blend is added to the mixer bowl right after the Jet Fuel tomato product is added to the bowl along with water to thin it down.
After staring at the above Barbados document for some time and wondering what it was, it finally hit me. It is an expanded or modified products list of Gordon Food Service (GFS), a well-known foodservice company with distribution centers in several states, including Michigan. It took me a fair amount of time to find the current GFS Product Guide to compare it with the Barbados document but I managed to hunt it down at the GFS website (
http://www.gfs.com/en). It is the document at
http://www.gfs.com/files/pdf/gms/ProductGuide.pdf. To satisfy myself that the Barbados product guide referenced above was an expanded or modified version of the GFS Product Guide, I ran several of the GFS product numbers listed in the Barbados document through the search engine of the current GFS Product Guide. The matches were there. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if GFS is the Michigan-based distribution company that Eugene Jetts mentioned in the Jet’s video. GFS also has a distribution center in Florida, where Jet’s has 10 stores and another on the way. (Note: The Bulk Gourmet Barbados document can also be found at
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41731252/BULK-GOURMET-PRICE-BOOK-UPDATED).
What I don’t yet know about the flour used by Jet’s to make its square pizzas is whether the flour is bromated or not. Typically, pan doughs benefit from the use of bromated flours, especially if the dough skins in pans are proofed. If the flour for the square pizzas is bromated, that would rule out all-purpose flours since all-purpose flour is almost never bromated. That leaves us with flour with a protein content of bread flour or high-gluten flour. I think it is safe to say that the flour used to make the NY style doughs is a high-gluten flour, but not the flour used to make the dough for the square pizzas.
Jet Fuel. To see if I could find the source of the Jet’s Jet Fuel tomatoes, I did a Google search using the exact phrase “vine-ripened fresh tomatoes, salt and naturally derived citric acid”. This is the phrase that is used in the Northville public school document referenced earlier. The search turned up several tomato products of Stanislaus Food Products, a well-known supplier of tomato products to the pizza industry. My search also turned up a good place to research the Stanislaus tomato products, at
http://profileshowcase.com/WEB-AFSProfile/Share/frmSearch.aspx. Selecting Stanislaus from the pull-down menu, I was able to research the Stanislaus tomato products and find detailed profiles on those products (by clicking on the icons on the left). After researching the Stanislaus products, and assuming that Stanislaus is the supplier to Jet’s, I would pick one of the Full Red or Saporito puree or ground/crushed tomatoes products as candidates for the Jet Fuel tomato product based on the consistency of the tomato sauce shown in the Jet’s video. Stanislaus does not recommend watering down their tomato products (they believe that that damages the fresh tomato flavor) but that is a practice that is common in the industry.
I also ran the Stanislaus name through the The Bulk Gourmet Barbados document and the GFS Product Guide but did not find the particular Stanislaus products mentioned above. However, that shouldn’t preclude Stanislaus from packing tomatoes in the Jet Fuel cans and shipping them to GFS for distribution to Jet store locations. We know from the Barbados document that the Jet Fuel tomatoes are listed in their version of the GFS document. As mentioned earlier, the supplier of the pizza sauce seasonings appears to be Castella Imports.
The Mozzarella Cheese. Apparently, the mozzarella cheese used by Jet’s comes from the milk of contented cows that have their own mattresses and listen to opera. I thought that this was quite unusual until I did a Google search and found that supplying cows with mattresses and playing music had been done before. An example of what I found is the document at
https://web.archive.org/web/20121123155755/http://www.purefood.org/rbgh/classical_music_milk_production.cfm. That document even goes so far as to list the best type of music to entertain and calm down the cows (the document also notes the less effective music). So, if you decide to get your own cows and treat them like the supplier of milk for the Jet’s cheeses, you will know what music is the best to use. You might even sing to your cows to save having to buy audio equipment. For now, based on the Northville public school document referenced above, I would say that Jet’s uses low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese as their pizza cheese. Also, according to an article about Jet’s at
http://community.timesfreepress.com/news/2010/dec/15/jets-pizza-lands-hixson/, it appears that the cheese is grated in-store.
(Note: As an update on the mozzarella cheese, on 1/13/11 and 1/14/11 it was learned through email exchanges with Grande that Grande mozzarella cheese is used by Jet's stores in its network of stores. See Reply 54 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=8247.msg123283#msg123283. Note also that the description of the Grande part skim loaf mozzarella cheese at
http://www.grandecheese.com/products/Pages/Product_Spec.aspx?ProductMasterID=16 is the same as given in the ingredients list in the Northville public school document referenced above. To the best of my knowledge, the only firm mozzarella cheeses that Grande sells in loaf form are the part skim and whole mozzarella cheeses.)
Other Jet’s Store Equipment. In addition to the Hobart mixer mentioned earlier, the Jet stores use other equipment. According to this document,
https://web.archive.org/web/20100216210131/http://www.hfse.com/submnu/simple%20parts/Jets%20Pizza%20SPCE.pdf, the other types of equipment used in Jet’s stores includes dough rollers (from Anets and Somerset), proofers (from Lockwood) and a conveyor oven (from Middleby-Marshall). More information on these products (other than the proofers) can be found at
https://web.archive.org/web/20120202163006/http://anetsberger.com/equipment/ANETS-doughro11er.pdf,
http://www.smrset.com/dough-roller-cdr-1550.shtml and
http://www.middleby.com/pdf/mm/4501.pdf.
I spoke recently with sales and customer service reps at Anets and Somerset and was told that the only reason why one would have dough rollers in their stores is to roll out skins. As it turns out, the Anets and Somerset dough rollers, although marketed to make round skins, can also form rectangular skins. For example, at Jet’s stores, workers can use the dual-pass feature of the above models of dough rollers to make round skins for their NY style pizzas, which requires turning the skin around 90 degrees after the first pass, or to make rectangular skins for their pan pizzas, which requires passing the skins through the machine twice in the same direction. I was told that the fit of the rectangular skins to pans is almost perfect, without even having to push the skins in the corners to get a good fit. If Jet’s wants to tout their round skins as hand tossed, they can use the dough rollers to open up the skins part way (about 2/3 of the final desired skin size) and stretch the dough the rest of the way out by hand. If you want to see how a typical dual-pass dough roller works, see the video for the Somerset CDR-1550 at
http://www.smrset.com/dough-roller-cdr-1550.shtml. I also spoke with a customer service rep at Lookwood (a Michigan company,
http://www.lockwoodusa.com/9.html) and was told that Jet’s often uses their proofers to keep baked pizzas warm. However, since the Lockwood proofers have separate temperature and humidity control, there is no reason why the proofers can’t be used to proof dough skins placed in the Jet square pans. Apparently the side rails of the Lockwood proofers can be removed or reconfigured to hold trays of pans. It is also possible that Jet’s uses the proofers for other products, such as rolls used for sandwiches. The dough for such products might even be delivered to Jet’s in frozen form. According to the nutrition/allergen section of the Jet’s website, Jet’s uses certain rolls from Caravan.
I’d appreciate having your comments and observations once you have had a chance to digest the above information. I might then have some suggestions for courses of action on your part.
Peter
EDIT: Added the Jet Fuel section (11/27/10)
EDIT 2: Added information on yeast and details on hydration and use of Jet Fuel (11/29/10)
EDIT 3: On 11/30/10, I learned from Jet's that the flour used to make the Jet's square pizzas is not bromated (12/11/10)
EDIT 4: On 1/13/11 and 1/14/11, following up on a lead by another member, I learned that Jet's uses mozzarella cheese from Grande for all of its stores.
EDIT 5: On 4/20/11, it was learned from member Pizzahog that a Jet's store he frequents uses the Grande shredded low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese. This is not a material point since the block and shredded forms of this cheese have the same nutrition specs.
EDIT 6: On 4/27/11, I learned from the manufacturer of pan lids used by Jet's (
http://www.pizzapanlids.com/) that the three pan sizes are not as noted above. The correct sizes are 8" x 10", 10" x 14" and 12" x 17". The pans used by Jet's are blue steel pans made by Dover Parkersburg and sold by P.A. Products (734-421-1060) and also by Northern Pizza Equipment (1-877-303-5319). See, also, Reply 77 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8247.msg137183.html#msg137183 and the thread at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13687.msg137011.html#msg137011.EDIT 7 (4/26/13): For the Wayback Machine link to the hfse equipment document, see
http://web.archive.org/web/20100216210131/http://www.hfse.com/submnu/simple%20parts/Jets%20Pizza%20SPCE.pdf; there are no Wayback Machine links for the no longer operative links to the Northville foodservive pdf document and to the profileshowcase document. However, a substitute document for the Northville document can be seen at
http://www.northville.k12.mi.us/district/foodservice/pdfs/elem-ingredients.pdf, and information on the Stanislaus tomato products can be found at
http://www.stanislaus.com/products/nutrition-facts.
EDIT 8 (4/26/13): It appears that the sources of pans mentioned earlier in this thread (and in EDIT 6) and also in the Buddy's and other related threads are no longer sourcing those pans. However, pans for the Detroit style pizza are now being sold by the Detroit Style Pizza Co. (
http://detroitstylepizza.co/detroit-style-pizza-pans/).
EDIT 9 (1/25/16): Corrected several of the inoperative links and found Wayback Machine versions for some inoperative links; however, other links that were previously corrected are no longer operative. However, a copy that I made of the ingredients for the Northville school district gives the ingredients for a pepperoni pizza as follows:
Dough (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, water, salt, sugar, oil, yeast), part-skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, rennet), pizza sauce (vine-ripened tomatoes, salt and naturally derived citric acid), pizza seasoning, pepperoni (pork, beef, salt, spices, dextrose, lactic acid starter culture, oleoresin of paprika, flavorings, sodium nitrate, BHA, BHT, citric acid). Note that the oil is not added to the dough but is used in the pan.
EDIT 10 (1/26/15): At the latest Jet's Allergens list at
http://jetspizza.com/pdf/allergeninformation-20151030.pdf, there is a GMO statement as follows:
GMO: There are no GMO grains in any of Jets products. Bay State Milling Company. This statement strongly suggests that the flour used to make Jet's pizzas is sourced by Bay State Milling. A listing of their flours can be seen in the Bay State Milling flour entry in the thread at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=40212.0.
