For more than a century, Amoroso’s Baking Co. has been producing the bread for the famous Philly cheesesteaks around the city. Each 800-pound batch of dough at this massive bread factory includes 2,500 rolls that become the base for Philadelphia’s most iconic dish.
To produce more than 250 million cheesesteak and hoagie rolls every year, the production facility is operational around the clock. Around 200,000 pounds of hard red spring wheat flour are delivered to the factory each week, where it is sifted before traveling via pipes to the mixers, where workers measure out the flour and water proportions for a giant batch. A machine divides the dough into perfectly measured, round portions, which are fed into eight production lines. Some bread is rolled into that perfect cylindrical shape and workers will check each of them for quality control, looking out for rolls that are not the right shape or length. That dough will be repurposed for bread crumbs or animal feed, so nothing goes to waste.
After that flurry of production, rolls are fermented for several hours in a cold room before entering the warm proofing stage. This helps the bread develop that iconic sweet and yeasty flavor that the small family bakery is known for.
Each roll is scored by hand before being fed into one of the largest ovens in an independent baking facility in the country. The rolls will travel across 135 feet for about 20 minutes, coming out golden brown and with a strong crumb that can hold up pounds of steak and cheese.
Next, those rolls are packaged and delivered to grocery stores, sandwich shops, and even Lincoln Financial Field, for game-side sandwiches. Amoroso’s has become synonymous with cheesesteaks across the city, even supplying more than 2,000 dozen rolls for Philadelphia Eagles home games. About 65 dozen rolls are delivered each day to Dalessandro’s Steaks & Hoagies, a Michelin-recognized cheesesteak shop that relies on the twice-a-day deliveries to make their high-quality sandwiches.
Watch Amoroso’s produce thousands of golden rolls that have become a cornerstone of Philly’s famous sandwich culture in this episode of Large Format.
