Perfect Pastries: French Gourmet Frozen Dough

Patrick Novak is the Willy Wonka of frozen pastries.

Novak, chief executive officer of French Gourmet Frozen Dough, bustles about the company’s manufacturing and distribution facility in Sparks much like the fictional candy-making genius Wonka: fine-tuning a temperature dial here, adjusting a flour mix there, and examining every process and action with a scrutinous eye.

French Gourmet makes a wide range of freshly frozen dough products — croissants, puff pastries, strudels, muffins and bread — for the food-service industry. The company’s main customers include cruise lines, upscale hotels and gourmet food stores who bake the products for fresh morning offerings.

The French Gourmet brand, a Nevada entity formed in 2011, was first created in 1984 on the island of Oahu.

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