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A look ahead

By Michelle Smith

August 2022

A look
ahead

Technology that promotes sustainability, efficiency and connectedness will take the baking industry into the future.

Baking & Snack

Aspire Bakeries

The bakery of the future will be about making connections. It will, of course, boast the latest technology, helping companies enhance efficiency, protect the planet and improve conditions for workers. But it’s also about the connections made between factions inside the bakery and to the outside world, including suppliers, customers and consumers, creating greater transparency and understanding.

“For the bakery of the future, there are basically four areas of focus. First is trying to get even better around improving safety and conditions for associates, with unwavering focus on food quality and safety,” said Brett Buatti, chief supply chain and operations officer, Aspire Bakeries, Los Angeles. “It’s also about a focus on sustainability and about improving efficiency and costs. And finally, there is this notion of connectedness, which helps with all these priorities as well as engagement with your people. Sensor technology and the Internet of Things enable the ability to connect within a bakery, to see more, to be aware of more, and to stay highly engaged with your associates. And it also allows you to actually connect the inside of the bakery to the outside world, whether that be suppliers, equipment manufacturers and service people, customers or even consumers.”

Promising technology is not only on the horizon but is already part of bakeries now, although much of it is complex and systems are still being perfected.

It’s not easy being green

Large companies are setting ambitious goals to reduce their carbon footprints through reduced packaging waste, energy and water.

“Bakers always strive to be more efficient across the board to make the best use of the resources they have. Energy and energy costs are always top of mind, in particular today with the many global uncertainties that are at hand,” said Rasma Zvaners, vice president, regulatory and technical service, American Bakers Association. “The baking industry already has a tremendous track record for making facilities more energy efficient. Most bakers have assessed their facilities’ efficiencies and Scope 1 emissions (greenhouse gas emissions at their facilities). Now they are looking directly at Scope 2 opportunities — indirect emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat or cooling.”

Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV, Mexico City, announced new sustainability goals in a May conference call that included becoming a net zero carbon emissions company by 2050, obtaining 100% of key ingredients through crop cultivation using regenerative agriculture practices by 2050, and ensuring that 100% of its packaging supports a circular economy by 2030. That comes on top of goals the company has already set, including using 100% renewable energy by 2025.

“We are in a decade of action, and this means we need to increase our speed to reach our sustainability goals,” Daniel J. Servitje, chairman and chief executive officer of Grupo Bimbo, said during the call. “In many areas, such as climate change and water management, [if] the world does not act more boldly, it may be too late. We want to be a part of this acceleration, and that is how I can sum up everything that nourishing a better world is. It means nourishing the well-being of people and nature at the same time because we can only make things better if we do both. It is about the planet and about the people that live on it.”

Earlier this year, Hostess Brands Inc., Lenexa, Kan., announced it would invest $120 million to $140 million to transform an idled bakery plant in Arkadelphia, Ark., into a state-of-the-art facility. The bakery will become the company’s most efficient and flexible operation and is expected to increase capacity for Donettes and other products by 20%, said Kevin Sandefur, vice president, operations strategy.

“We are building this bakery with a sustainability-first approach, and we are committed to making it the greenest Hostess bakery we have,” he said. “We’ve outlined our sustainability goals for our company in the Hostess Corporate Responsibility Report that we issued in May, and we expect our Arkadelphia bakery to lead the way in achieving those goals.”

The company is working to make its other bakeries more sustainable and efficient, Mr. Sandefur said, through the reduction of water, energy usage, packaging waste and other waste.

“At Hostess, we will focus on sustainability at our bakeries as we look forward,” he added. “From development to execution, we will approach manufacturing expansion in a sustainable way.”

Barry Edwards, vice president, corporate responsibility and sustainability, Aspire Bakeries, said that bakeries should follow LEED green energy standards when building and adopting standards that move them toward lower net carbon emissions. He also stressed the importance of building in the right place.

“Logistics are forever,” Mr. Edwards said. “There are a lot of miles involved in transporting any product, and the more you can think about where you can locate your facility to try and minimize the miles, whether incoming with raw materials or outgoing to the customer, the better off you’ll be. It makes sense to look at that and try to minimize as much as you can. It’s a long-term amount of miles that you’re going to be creating.”

Employing connected systems that provide real-time access to data will help facilities better manage resources and find problems right away, Mr. Buatti said, rather than seeing a spike in usage a week or month later when it’s too late to act on it.

“You can use the data in a lot of ways, including efficiency and quality,” he said. “It’s a natural extension to use it on sustainability-focused activities, too. So you can catch energy usage while it’s happening, you can catch wastewater discharge while it’s happening, and you can catch water usage while it’s happening.”

It’s clear bakeries understand that sustainability is an important part of future operations.

“Anything that reduces your overall impact to the environment, whether emissions or energy usage or waste, those are must-haves in the future,” Mr. Buatti said.

Charles Fleischmann with his brother Max and partner James Gaff created the first commercialized yeast for the baking industry. AB Mauri North America

Automation and engagement

The bakeries of the future will have more advanced tools in the forms of robotics, data-capturing equipment, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies. This will involve high-speed internet and the use of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to connect bakeries to the outside world.

Bakeries large and small are turning to more complex and sophisticated forms of automation with a tight labor market and the need to run as fast and efficiently as possible.

“There’s old-school automation, which is sensors and motors, and there’s more advanced systems like robotics,” Mr. Buatti said. “Classic automation can be a bit limited in that it usually ends up doing a lot of the same thing very fast. However, that can really limit flexibility and can limit your product range or ability to innovate.  You’ve got to balance the trade-off between efficiency and flexibility. What helps is when robotics advance enough to be flexible at really high speeds. There are applications in the present, but that’s when it becomes futuristic. How can we do all kinds of things but do it really fast?”

He stressed that it’s not about eliminating jobs in the bakery but making them more engaging. For instance, instead of an employee packaging items by hand, that person could be trained to oversee packaging machinery and robots. This improves skills and reduces repetitive motion injuries.

Real-time connectivity will help bakeries keep in close contact with suppliers and customers.

“That technology is out there; it’s just not fully perfected and realized within the four walls of the bakery,” Mr. Buatti said. “I can pull up on my screen right now what’s happening in the factories. What lines are running, what lines are down, how well they’ve run today. The notion of allowing customers access to something, even as simple as, ‘Yes, your product is running and here’s how much we’ve made,’ is very doable. But it’s a big question as to whether you’d want to or how you’d do it and what you’d share.”

He also sees better connectedness within the bakery benefitting the company and employees.

“If you get the right programmer, set it up the right way, you can have people see a piece of data, tag it and send it to someone who has another device in the bakery, saying, ‘Hey, I think you might be sending me product from upfront that’s too dry. You’ve got to adjust your moisture levels,’ ” he said. “Or they can say, ‘This is making a weird noise. Let me use my wireless device to turn on the camera that can show the mechanic who’s on the other side of the bakery what’s going on here.’ ”

These tools could link teams together and improve engagement by not just educating about problems to watch for but also celebrating successes with other team members. Mr. Edwards said these connections can make jobs more meaningful.

“People want to be a part of something bigger,” he said. “And in the long run, it helps the business because they’re noticing things that might not be right that they can get fixed in the process.”

Dough improvers have been around since the beginning of commercial baking to ensure dough endures the stresses of industrial baking. Corbion

Data collection and AI

Companies are using systems to tie in data from multiple production lines at multiple sites across the globe to help improve processes, said Jon Gilchrist, engineering manager at Sightline Process Control Inc., a KPM Analytics brand, which among other things provides vision systems for bakeries.

“We’ve seen deployments of these data systems where across the globe specific lines are being pulled into one data structure that’s presented for both decision-making and analysis purposes as well as just monitoring,” he said. “So being able to extract things like counts and common production issues from the data are a critical part of it.”

Collecting and analyzing data are enabling companies to make better decisions and identify causes of inconsistences that they otherwise would not have been able to identify, Mr. Gilchrist said.

“The real benefit is in that data, analyzing that and being able to identify where things are going wrong and solve those to actually reduce waste and increase your output,” he said. “That’s the critical side of it.”

The benefit of AI is to help bakeries break down copious complex data and make it useful, said Liran Akavia, co-founder and chief operating officer of Seebo, now part of Augury.

“Waste and quality are the two main challenges we see in particular that baked goods manufacturers want to address most urgently — and it’s here we see artificial intelligence providing major value,” he said. “These losses can take many forms: from overweight to size and shape inconsistencies, color variances, packaging errors and more. But the common thread is these losses are always due to inefficiencies within the production process itself, as opposed to asset-related issues, for example.”

Using AI in a bakery begins with defining business objectives, Mr. Akavia said. It’s the most critical phase because it allows all parties to focus on a concrete, measurable business goal, which is key to seeing the value of AI.

“I should emphasize that you don’t need to extract all possible data,” he said. “In fact, one important part of the adoption process is that our team guides the manufacturing team to extract precisely the data they need, which makes the time to benefit far quicker.”

Once implemented, the company’s algorithms learn the process and begin providing insights.

“Process experts gain the insights into why losses are happening and how to prevent them, and operators receive real-time alerts on when and how to act to prevent process inefficiencies and losses before they occur,” Mr. Akavia said.

As bakeries delve further into collecting data and sharing information, cybersecurity will be paramount.

“These sites have a duty to their own company and to their clients to maintain data security,” Mr. Gilchrist said. “That often means working with established processes or establishing new processes to deal with some of the changing requirements that come with integrating such a large data pool. … We’re seeing that enhanced push to get these pieces of equipment on the network, have access to them both from external and internal resources, and that definitely takes a lot of careful planning and consideration.”

He suggested that bakeries concerned about security partner with their suppliers as they have likely helped others with similar issues.

“The more we can align as an industry on solutions and adopt shared practices, I think that’s the best path forward and makes life easier for everybody,” Mr. Gilchrist said.

As companies set ambitious goals for sustainability, increased output and efficiency, they have many tools to help them improve their companies while helping employees and the planet. They just need to decide what they want their bakery of the future to look like.

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Catalysts for change

By Charlotte Atchley

June 2022

Catalysts
for change

The pressures of regulation and consumer demand have led to significant advances in food science for the baking industry.

Baking & Snack

©JHVEPhoto – stock.adobe.com

Innovation comes from many places. Sometimes it’s born out of need: a new regulation nullifies the use of a reliable ingredient. Other times it comes from an individual asking the simple question: Does it have to be this way? Occasionally, a person just wants to recreate the bread of their homeland in their new country.


Regardless of how innovation starts, it can be revolutionary. And the baking industry has seen much transformation over the past 100-plus years, from the commercialization of yeast to the many ingredients that make automated bakery production possible. Bakers and food scientists have been tinkering and reformulating to find new ways to reduce saturated fat, make whole grains more palatable and meet consumers’ ever-changing demands for less additives and more natural, healthful — but delicious — baked goods.

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Standardizing the rise

More than one hundred years ago, the commercial baking industry was born from a culmination of many technological advancements. Milling technology improved to enable large-scale flour production. The industrial revolution brought about equipment that allowed bakers to use up all that flour and commercially bake bread. The commercialization of yeast by the Fleischmann family, however, standardized a chemical reaction that until that point had largely been guesswork and accident.

 

The Fleischmanns certainly didn’t invent yeast. In 1857, it was Louis Pasteur who discovered what yeast could do. By studying fermentation, Mr. Pasteur confirmed that yeast was a microorganism, and that it converted sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. He also found out that yeast contaminated with Lactobacillus produced a souring lactic acid, and that if air was added during the fermentation process, the yeast would multiply. While these discoveries led to Mr. Pasteur’s contributions to medical science, it also provided every industry that uses yeast the foundational scientific knowledge to harness specific strains and make them more consistent.


Enter the Fleischmann family, specifically brothers Charles and Max. Distillers by trade, Charles and Max Fleischmann immigrated to the United States from their native Austria in 1866. After establishing themselves in the US, the brothers saw a need in their new home in Cincinnati to provide European-style bread to their Austrian-German community. They partnered with James Gaff to develop, manufacture and sell compressed yeast from a strain brought from Austria for both commercial and home bakers. The brothers and Mr. Gaff founded Gaff, Fleischmann & Co. in 1868.


“Yeast fermentation and baking are very scientific processes,” said Michelle Brodie, director of yeast technology of AB Mauri North America, which currently owns the Fleischmann’s brand. “Consistency is key to ensuring our customers are putting out the same product week after week.”


The next scientific advancement in yeast was the invention of active dry yeast. In 1933, Harold Allden Ander invented the process that would dehydrate fresh yeast while maintaining its functionality. Standard Brands, which owned the Fleischmann’s brand at the time, patented the process and launched Fleischmann’s Active Dry Yeast. This added months to the shelf life of yeast, removing concerns from commercial bakers about losing the viability of the fresh yeast they were purchasing. All they needed to do was simply rehydrate the dormant yeast.


In 1984, Fleischmann’s would make yeast even easier to use with its RapidRise Instant Yeast. This ingredient could simply be added to the mixing bowl and deliver the rise bakers needed.


“What revolutionized the industry was when Fleischmann’s developed the dry yeast because you could just add it to the dough mix,” Ms. Brodie said. “Then they continued to revolutionize by developing the fast-rising dry yeast. Bakers could just add it to the dough mix without hydration. These dry products are now staples.”

Charles Fleischmann with his brother Max and partner James Gaff created the first commercialized yeast for the baking industry. AB Mauri North America

Back and forth with fats

No other major ingredient category may have had more ups and downs in the past 100 years than fats and oils. These ingredients aren’t critical to every bakery application — most bread formulations don’t require much if any fat. But for those bakery applications that do need fat — cakes, donuts or laminated doughs — these ingredients do a lot of heavy lifting.


Every time fats and oils have had to shift to appease health-conscious consumers or the US Food & Drug Administration, the baking industry has waited with baited-breath to see if the latest replacements would hold up to previous standards.


Originally, bakers used butter or lard, traditional animal fats, to provide lift and flavor to their baked goods, or the perfect fry on their donuts. In 1911, the development of Crisco — the first commercially produced partially hydrogenated oil — and the heavy marketing push around the new ingredient to home bakers, began the fall of animal fat. It was cheaper than animal fats with similar functionality and began outpacing lard as the fat of choice for home bakers.


Partial hydrogenation enables bakers to use vegetable oils as shortening. The process converts vegetable oils into solid forms of varying plasticity. Unlike simply blending vegetable oils, hydrogenation also improves the shortening’s resistance to oxidation and rancidity.


“Those shortenings provided the tenderness, structure and mouthfeel consumers expected,” said Frank Flider, oils consultant for the United Soybean Board. “When PHOs went away, the problem became matching the performance we had with PHOs and animal fats and developing shortenings that had the same characteristics that bakers are used to.”


Unlike animal fats, which gain their functionality from saturated fat, PHOs use trans fats to get those same characteristics. In the 1950s when saturated fat was linked to cardiovascular health, PHOs became even more in vogue as a way to eliminate saturated fats from baked goods. However, when new science found trans fats to be even more hazardous to human health than saturated fats, the FDA stepped in.


In 2015, the FDA revoked the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status of PHOs. The baking industry had three years to remove PHOs from their formulations, except in the instances of using small amounts of PHOs as a food additive, for example, as a carrier for colors and flavors.


Replacing PHOs created not just a formidable challenge but an opportunity for a wealth of innovation. From it has come many ingredient technologies and formulating strategies to create custom fats and oils. To date there is no drop-in PHO replacement that works across all applications. Food scientists have relied on blending multiple base oils, emulsifiers, high-oleic base oils and interesterification to create custom shortenings that deliver the same functionality as PHOs. Fully hydrogenated oils contain no trans fatty acids and have been useful as food scientists blend them and use interesterification to create custom shortenings to replace partially hydrogenated counterparts.


With PHOs successfully replaced with custom blends, bakers are now turning toward continued reduction of saturated fats as well as finding more sustainable fat and oil ingredients.

Dough improvers have been around since the beginning of commercial baking to ensure dough endures the stresses of industrial baking. Corbion

A stronger dough

While commercial yeast would provide a consistent, easy-to-achieve rise for commercial bakers, the equipment producing the baked goods would require stronger formulas to handle the stress.


“Continuous bread production that we see today requires more tolerance from the formulation,” said Yangling Yin, PhD, director of RD&A, ingredient solutions, Corbion. “Doughs running in these continuous production runs require quite a bit of dough strength.”


The baking industry turned to dough conditioners — which provide several functionalities including strengthening, relaxing and softening — to provide that strength. Emulsifiers like DATEM, SSL, mono- and diglycerides showed that they could improve the texture and tolerance of doughs that were produced in 3,000-loaf batches.


These emulsifiers have been around a long time, though they have cycled through as standards for formulating throughout the years. Industrial-scale emulsifiers have been around since 1920, specifically monoglycerides since 1934 and DATEM since 1960. In 1958, the FDA granted GRAS status to improve ingredients in general use.


Since then, new legislation has eliminated the use of some of these ingredients, as is the case with potassium bromate. While this ingredient proved useful as an oxidizing agent that strengthened the dough, it is banned in many countries around the world including the European Union. The US has yet to outright ban the ingredient, though the FDA has encouraged bakers to voluntarily stop using it, most of which have complied. Since then, other emulsifiers like DATEM and SSL took a turn in the spotlight, according to Dr. Yin.


However, as consumers continue to expect cleaner ingredient labels, bakers have been looking for other options to provide the same level of tolerance, texture and shelf life as emulsifiers.


“When clean label came on as a trend a few years ago, people in the industry thought it would come and go just like other passing trends,” Dr. Yin said. “But it’s not going to go away. The next generations want it, and the clean label trend will only grow stronger.”

Clean up on aisle 65

The movement toward clean label, generally defined as ingredients consumers readily recognize, has led to many exciting ingredient innovations as bakers rush to remove stand-by ingredients that have enabled the commercial scale production of baked goods. Clean label as a term doesn’t have a regulated meaning, though many companies base their clean label formulation decisions on what is accepted at retailers such as Whole Foods or regulations such as California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65.


Proposition 65 requires companies to disclose whether their products contain any of the 900 substances included in its list of toxic chemicals, or those that could cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm at significant exposure. This disclosure includes a regulated warning label, and companies found omitting the warning could be fined up to $2,500 per day for each violation. While this law technically only applies to products sold in California, many companies include the label on all products sold in the US as a precaution if they contain a listed chemical. Ideally, however, companies reformulate their products, which has led to much innovation in the baking industry, specifically around enzymes.


“Labeling became an issue; people were shocked to read all those chemical terms on their bread labels,” said Kees Docter, retired senior director of technical services for Lallemand Baking. “But with enzymes, it’s just enzymes, which are naturally occurring.”


Mr. Docter’s longtime colleague Jan van Eijk, PhD, retired research director of Lallemand Baking, spent much of his 38-year career developing enzymes for the baking industry as it strove to find clean label solutions for dough conditioning and shelf life. After joining Lallemand Baking, Dr. van Eijk moved to the US from The Netherlands where he saw the clean label movement begin to pick up steam. With his experience baking in Europe, where chemicals like bromate had already been removed, he applied his knowledge to developing enzymes for the US baking industry.


“We wanted to be the first to the clean label solution,” Mr. Docter said. “We saw that coming, and we wanted to be first, and with our experience making bread in Europe, we knew we could do it.”


The game changer for enzymes, in Dr. Yin’s opinion, was the ability to use genetically modified substrates to gain control of enzymes. Before this time, about six or seven years ago, enzymes were difficult to control. They’re sensitive to their environment, and bakeries are inconsistent places with changing ambient temperatures, humidity and flour quality. Harnessing enzymes through GMO substrates made these ingredients more consistent and easier to use.


As consumer demand has pushed the industry toward enzymes, cost has also played a factor.


“There’s not just a label improvement but a cost reduction,” Dr. Yin said. “The gluten shortage, for example: gluten by itself is very expensive. We’re not even talking about the availability issue, but it’s just not sustainable in this crisis. People are looking at enzymes as a sustainable and cost-saving solution.”


With the commercialization of enzymes bakers have been able to move from emulsifiers to strengthen dough, soften dough and even extend shelf life, where the baking industry continues to reach new heights.

Changing the game with ESL

Extended shelf life (ESL) radically changed the way the baking industry did business. The research and development team at Interstate Bakeries Corp. (IBC), Kansas City, Mo., led by Theresa Cogswell, was able to develop a proprietary enzyme blend that enabled them to double Wonder Bread’s shelf life to seven days from four. Ms. Cogswell recalled that no one was quite sure what to do with such a revolutionary product when bread previously barely lasted longer than the daily paper.


“No one at IBC knew how to implement it,” said Ms. Cogswell. “The execution of ESL Wonder Bread came from Walmart. They no longer had to stack bread by the day of the week; they could now mass merchandise the bread.”


In an interview with Milling & Baking News, then President and Chief Executive Officer Chuck Sullivan laid out the benefits for retailers:


“Retailers, including Walmart, define full service as a full shelf. The positive side for the retailer is that the shelves remain full all the time, as opposed to the short shelf life we had before.”


While speaking to analysts in an investor call on September 19, 2001, Mr. Sullivan showed that ESL had reduced stale returns from 12% to 15% to 6% to 7%. He also elaborated on how this innovation would impact routes, deliveries and operational efficiencies.


“It essentially reduces the amount of product we have to pick up; it increases productivity of routes; it results in fewer routes,” he said.


Ms. Cogswell remembers the room full of maps with pins all over to show those different delivery routes.


“The guys would be in there repinning the routes because they didn’t have to deliver bread as often,” she said.


Ms. Cogswell recalled that the company saved $60 million that first year of ESL Wonder Bread. Despite the pushback she received (she remembered being told multiple times she would single-handedly destroy the baking industry), Ms. Cogswell’s passion project changed the game on the way bread was not only merchandised but produced and delivered.


“I never understood the bakery business model,” she said. “We would bake 100 loaves of bread and intentionally be okay with losing three to five loaves due to staling because we couldn’t sell them by the expiration date. …


“I credit my mother with this achievement because she never wasted anything, and I used to look around at all the waste and stales in the bakery and wonder, ‘Does it really have to be this way?’ ”


And that’s the big question that every innovator asks themselves and the industry. The answer carries the baking industry into the future of taste, nutrition and better operations.

Health guidance has sent fats and oils suppliers on an innovation journey from animal fats to PHOs to customized shortenings. ©JPC-PROD - stock.adobe.com
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The push and pull

By Charlotte Atchley

May 2022

The push
and pull

Grains have long been the foundation of the American diet, but consumer behavior doesn’t always comport with nutrition science.

Baking & Snack

stock.adobe.com 

Despite the prevalence of low-carb dieting over the past generation — a trend that keeps cycling back around with different names — grain-based foods have made up the bulk of people’s diet for the vast majority of human existence. Bread in various forms has served as the foundation of a meal and accounted for more calories consumed than any other food category. It’s only been since the 1970s and even more persistently since the late 1990s, that some people have truly shunned carbohydrates, and therefore, grain-based foods, to achieve what they believe to be a healthier lifestyle.


But consumer perception of what’s good for them and what’s not fails to line up with what scientists have discovered and what science continues to learn about the place grains and carbohydrates have in the diet. Even now, despite consumers’ renewed interest in baked goods, low-carb persists. In today’s iteration, the baking industry contends with the keto diet and demand for baked goods that deal in net carbs, or those carbohydrates which are digested and used for energy.

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The evolution of grains

The industrial revolution brought about many technological advancements, but the ability to mill flour on a larger scale made it possible to commercially produce bread. Previous to this advancement, most people baked their own bread with whole grain flour.


“These flours were milled and consumed on a shorter timeline and a smaller scale,” said Sarah Corwin, PhD, RD, senior principal scientist, plant-based, Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition, who studied carbohydrate chemistry and digestion at Purdue University. “By having large-scale refinement technology, we observed that the fat, B vitamins and proteins in whole grain spoiled the flour, so the shelf life was much shorter. This wasn’t a problem before because we were consuming it as it was produced, but now we’re able to create very large amounts of flour and baked goods way ahead of what we needed, so we needed to extend the shelf life of that flour.”


To do that, millers removed the bran and germ, extending the shelf life at the expense of the nutritional value. Most baked goods were then made with refined grain, but because grain-based foods made up the bulk of the American diet, it wasn’t long before nutrition deficiencies started showing up in the population.


To counteract that, the United States government began food fortification and enrichment programs: adding iodine on a voluntary basis to salt in 1924 and vitamin D to milk in 1933. In 1940, flour entered the spotlight with the Committee on Food and Nutrition recommending it be enriched with thiamin, niacin, riboflavin and iron. The US Food & Drug Administration established a standard of identity for enriched flour including these initial nutrients, and by 1942 much of the bread being produced in the US was meeting this standard voluntarily. In 1998, folic acid fortification was added to the standard of identity to address neural tube birth defects.


“It’s been documented since that time that the incidence of neural tube birth defects has fallen precipitously, and it’s directly related to that,” said Glenn Gaesser, PhD, professor, College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University, and member of the Grain Foods Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. “And you see that in countries that don’t have mandatory fortification you don’t see the same sort of benefits. It’s just one example, but it’s pretty clear cut.”


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that this addition has prevented neural tube birth defects in about 1,300 babies each year. These defects have decreased by 35% in the US since 1998.


While enrichment has certainly boosted the nutrition of refined flour — and complex carbohydrates offered by refined flour are also helpful to the human body — whole grains offer an elevated nutritional profile to consumers. While commercial baking may have been geared toward refined flour because of the ease of production and shelf life, the scientific community has been wise to the nutritional powerhouse that is whole grains for quite some time.


“In the mid-19th century, when nutrition science was only in its infancy, whole grains were a staple food in American health sanitariums,” said Kelly LeBlanc, MLA, RD, LDN, director of nutrition, Oldways. “In fact, many commercial whole grains today, such as graham flour and whole grain cereal, can be traced to the teachings of Sylvester Graham and John Harvey Kellogg, who were prominent and controversial health influencers of their time.”


Even at the turn of the century, Ms. LeBlanc pointed out that scientists noticed people eating brown rice in East Asia were significantly less likely to develop beriberi, a chronic disease that is potentially deadly, than their counterparts who were eating white rice.


“This finding paved the way for the discovery of vitamins and helped shape our understanding of the nutritional value that whole grains have to offer,” she explained. “Over the years, as nutrition scientists learned more about the importance of micronutrients like vitamins and minerals, as well as other essential nutrients like fiber, it became increasingly clear that whole grains were an important part of a nutritious diet.”

Milling technology and better formulating knowledge has enabled baking companies to create whole grain breads that are palatable. stock.adobe.com

The taste of healthy

Despite the profound knowledge, even among fickle consumers, that whole grains are a benefit to the body, consumption of whole grains has always been slow. Taste remains the No. 1 reason consumers make repeat food purchases, regardless of any virtue-signaling they may provide their friends, family and market researchers. And for many, products made with enriched flour simply taste better.


“It’s been a real challenge to get people to consume more whole grain foods,” Dr. Gaesser said. “And it’s not from lack of advertising or general knowledge that whole grains are good. You can find that easily on the internet. There are all sorts of studies and websites that tout the health of whole grains. You can look at the scientific literature and see that whole grains are associated with lower risk of a lot of chronic diseases, so why people don’t consume more I think it’s just a matter of taste, texture and maybe even color.”


The 2021 Whole Grain Consumer Insights Survey found that the biggest barriers to whole grain consumption are taste (33%), cost (29%) and availability (23%). Things may be changing, however, as consumers have become more educated, and millers have created whole grain flours that create more palatable breads packed with nutrition.


That same consumer insights survey also found that more than a quarter of respondents reported there is nothing keeping them from eating more whole grains, and more consumers reported that they see the taste of whole grains as a benefit rather than a barrier.


“Zooming out a little further, lack of exposure to whole grains had also been a barrier to whole grain consumption, but this is an area where we’re really seeing progress,” Ms. LeBlanc explained. “Feeding experts note that food preferences are not set in stone, and that in order to enjoy a food, we really need repeated exposures to it over time.”


The Dietary Guidelines of Americans quantifying whole grain recommendations influenced school lunch programs and the bakery products that could be offered to schoolchildren. The baking industry has used more finely milled whole grain flours and a combination of whole grain and enriched flours to create soft and smooth products for school lunch programs and even the retail shelf to satisfy even the pickiest of eaters.


“Thankfully, today’s bread makers have a better understanding that whole wheat flour cannot simply be substituted 1:1 for all-purpose flour, and that different varieties of wheat are well-suited for different end products,” Ms. LeBlanc explained. “By experimenting with different types of whole grain flours, milling to a smaller particle size, increasing hydration of the doughs and investing in product research and development, today’s bakers and manufacturers are able to offer more delicious whole grain breads than ever before.”


Just last year, Bimbo Bakeries USA (BBU), Horsham, Pa., launched Soft & Smooth wheat bread under its Sara Lee Delightful line. The Delightful line contains no added sugars and contains only 45 calories per slice in addition to this variety delivering whole grain nutrition with a soft and smooth texture. In January 2021, the company also introduced Sara Lee Delightful White Made with Whole Grain, which also claims to be keto-friendly with only 6 grams of net carbs per slice.


Flowers Foods, Thomasville, Ga., also touts a wide variety of whole wheat and whole grain breads with a soft and smooth texture, and some formulated with honey.
New products that provide a range of textures and flavors associated with whole grains have helped Americans learn to appreciate the flavor and texture the grains contribute to baked goods.


“In fact, in 2010, whole grain bread sales began to surpass those of white bread,” Ms. LeBlanc pointed out. “Today, whole grain breads are a trendy staple at artisan bakeries across the country, and whole grains like quinoa, farro and brown rice appear on fine dining menus and fast casual alike. Additionally, locally grown whole grains provide a unique path for bakers and food producers to connect with the Earth and support local food systems and economies.”


For consumers who are interested in the taste and texture of whole grains, there’s a wide array of options to choose from, whether it’s BBU’s Oroweat brand or Flowers Foods’ Dave’s Killer Bread, which both market to a health-conscious and socially conscious consumer.


“There are so many options that it would be almost impossible that someone couldn’t find something that was palatable,” Dr. Gaesser said. “In the past, some of the whole grain breads just tasted like cardboard, but today, the coarse texture can be minimized, and that’s paved the way for all the options we have now.”

The consumer conundrum

While the science around the benefits of whole grains and enriched grains is clear and consistent, the movement toward low-carbohydrate diets has persisted in the collective consumer conscious since the 1960s. Carbohydrates gained a brief respite in the 1980s while fat took a turn at vilification, but in the 1990s, the spotlight turned back toward carbohydrates and simple sugars. Dr. Corwin attributes this persistent vilification with the growing understanding of macronutrients.

 

“As the science progressed, we started to understand the caloric distribution of macronutrients,” she said. “That’s when we began to understand that fat is higher in calories than protein, so maybe we should cut down on fat and carbohydrates. Then sugar became the next target because it’s a simple carbohydrate. This also coincided with the observation that with a ketogenic diet, glycogen stored in muscle (which is more than 10 times its weight in water) is lost, resulting in the number on the scale going down. It’s been a long progression of carbohydrates being viewed negatively, even though grains are the main source of carbohydrates in the American diet.”

 

Dr. Gaesser also pointed to the fixation on dieting and the growing rates of obesity in America. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2013-2016, found that 49.1% of US adults tried to lose weight in the past 12 months, while nearly 40% were considered obese. Among the adults who tried to lose weight, exercise and eating less were tied for the top spot with 62.9% of respondents reporting these strategies.

 

“When you look at diet from the standpoint of how to lose weight, you see a smorgasbord of diets that have vilified carbs, whether it’s low-carb, keto or paleo,” Dr. Gaesser said. “Carbohydrates are the most commonly consumed macronutrient, so for most of the last century, about half the calorie intake for the average American comes from carbs. So if you want to lose weight, you need to cut calories.

 

Carbohydrates are an easy target. It makes sense from this perspective to cut out something that you’re consuming a lot of. However, research shows that in terms of weight loss, it’s the calories not the carbs.”

 

Dr. Gaesser also pointed to the biology of how carbohydrates are stored in the body as to why people find so much initial success with cutting carbohydrates.

 

“For every gram of carbohydrate you store in your body, you store almost 3 grams of water with it,” he explained. “So if you lose the carbohydrate, you also lose the water weight. When people go on a carb-free diet, they can drop 5 to 10 lbs within the first week, and they think this is the best diet ever because they’ve never experienced that. The low-carb diet gurus have capitalized on that phenomenon.”

 

It’s these stories about quick weight loss, Dr. Corwin said, that attract the public more than the science because stories can be so powerful.

 

“But anecdotes aren’t scientific evidence,” she said. “MSG is a really good example. One person published one article saying they had a headache and a stomachache after eating Chinese food. And that resonated with someone else, and they repeated it over and over again. MSG is also naturally occurring in Italian food in the Parmesan cheese, so why is this phenomenon so specific to Chinese food? Only recently in the last four years has it really come to light that the reason why people thought MSG was bad was xenophobia and a couple of misinformed articles in the 1960s.”

 

Today, the sexy diet people are hopping on board is the ketogenic diet, which on its own has a long, well-documented history to treat epilepsy. But it has reached the mainstream consumer who may not need this extremely restricted diet to treat anything but a waistline. Dr. Gaesser pointed out that there could be unintended consequences for those who cut carbs without a medical reason to do so, whether that’s epilepsy or celiac disease. Two research papers published in major journals he cited show an association between cutting out gluten and increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.

 

“If you cut out wheat — Americans’ major source of gluten — you’re cutting out a major source of fiber,” he pointed out. “Studies show that dietary fiber — particularly cereal fiber — is inversely associated with diabetes and heart disease.”

 

There’s been chatter about the healthfulness of sprouted grains, low-carb breads and long fermentation products like sourdough, but the science is leading to fiber.

 

“There is really interesting research starting to hit publications around what type of fiber is beneficial, but there is no real research around some other consumer trends,” Dr. Corwin said. “Despite minimal research backing the lasting benefits of probiotics, some research supports prebiotics and fiber for gut health. I believe prebiotics and fiber are the future of gut health. If science drives trends, then the next steps will be determining what those types of fiber are. Hopefully, that’s how we’ll be developing new products.”

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Evolution of snacking

By Michelle Smith

April 2022

Evolution
of snacking

As the snack industry grows and changes, consumers are gobbling up a variety of treats.

Baking & Snack

Quinn Snacks

 

When James Herr started his business in 1946, he sold potato chips at a local market in Lancaster, Pa. But that wasn’t the only way he found to get his snacks in the hands of potential customers. He would place free 3-lb tins of chips on doorsteps with a note telling people that if they liked them, they simply needed to return the tin, pay the fee, and another tin would be delivered.


“Back in the 1940s, you didn’t have all these supermarket chains,” said Ed Herr, James Herr’s son and current chairman and chief executive officer of Herr Foods Inc., Nottingham, Pa. “Back then, it was more mom-and-pop stores.”


Things have changed a lot at Herr’s in the 76 years since that humble beginning. Indeed, automation, packaging, distribution, ingredients and so much more — including snackers and their habits — have all had a hand in transforming the snack industry into the vibrant, multifaceted powerhouse it is today. As Sosland Publishing, the parent company of Baking & Snack, celebrates 100 years in business, we are taking a closer look to see what’s gone before and what’s next.

Managing dramatic changes

Many automation innovations have been developed for snack makers over the past century, including many pieces of machinery that have only become faster and more efficient through the years. This list includes equipment bagging salty snacks like chips and pretzels.


“The automation that has come in has been fantastic, and the systems and controls have been amazing,” said Barry Levin, CEO of Snak King Corp., City of Industry, Calif. “When I first started, we had volumetric fillers. Then we had bulk and dribble feeders going into a single scale. Today we have combination weighers that are significantly faster and more accurate. The tools we have today are remarkable to help us make good products consistently.”


The equipment has come a long way for pretzels, too, said Justin Spannuth, vice president and chief operating officer at Unique Snacks, Reading, Pa.


“With twisting, braiding, filling, the rate of extrusion back when we were on Montrose Avenue — this was pre-1980 — we had a Unex brand extruder, which extruded two pretzels at a time,” he explained.


That amounted to about 100 pretzels per minute while extruders today can produce several thousand per minute, although Mr. Spannuth said that to ensure quality, Unique Snacks doesn’t operate at maximum speed.


And the industry has changed significantly over the years, said Troy Gunden, president of Herr’s and the third generation to run the family-owned company, which employs 13 family members in a variety of roles.


“For the first 75 years of your publication, there would have been a lot of mom-and-pop businesses and independent snack food companies in each different area producing either potato chips or crackers or any number of things,” he said. “In the ’80s, ’90s and definitely now, it seems like there’s significantly more consolidation.”


Malcolm McAlpine, business manager for branded snacks and confections in foodservice for Mondelez International, Chicago, pointed out that there wasn’t much in the way of packaged snacks outside of retail 100 years ago.


“Over the past 30 years, the variety and pack formats have exploded,” he said. “For example, on Oreo we have probably 20 different pack formats on a regular Oreo. Everything from two-count, four-count, six-count, king size, mini big bags, regular bags, retail family size, 20 oz. What’s really happened is not only has snacking increased dramatically, but also the fact that, particularly in the last 20 years, pack sizes and formats have been developed to fit specific channels.”

Creating community

Snack producers say they have found success in a variety of ways. Herr’s maintains not only a dedication to tradition, community and sustainability but also through steady expansion and progress.


“We pretty much stick to what we do and try to do it really well,” Mr. Herr said. “We’re really proud of our culture and our people. Our slogan this year is ‘It’s our people.’ We believe it’s not just our Herr family, it’s the Herr Foods family, and we all work together to build a strong reputation in the industry. We believe in our mission to safely provide the best products and service to our customers.”


Community is a theme that snack makers touted as vital. That comes in the form of company culture as well as reaching out to customers by establishing personal connections.


“You build digital brands by building a community,” said Joe Ens, CEO of HighKey, Orlando, Fla., which started by selling no-sugar cookies online before jumping to retail. “We invested heavily in digital, social and influencers to build a foundation, a consumer community that stays with us still. As soon as we hit a retailer shelf, we’ve already got a built-in loyalty.”


E-commerce and direct-to-consumer websites help startups connect with consumers by creating unique brand experiences, said Stacey Benham, vice president marketing, Quinn Snacks, Boulder, Colo., which sells all-natural snacks.


“This channel also makes it possible for more personalized conversations with loyal consumers to really understand what they love about your product and your brand so you can deliver an exceptional experience,” she said.


Connecting online with consumers is good business as 62% of people enjoy food content on social media, according to the Third Annual “State of Snacking” report from Mondelez International. That number jumps to 82% among Generation Z consumers.


Mr. Ens credits part of HighKey’s success to a growth mindset. That includes seeing failure as progress.


“What e-commerce has enabled for a company like us that has a growth mindset is you can just go for stuff,” he said. “And as long as it’s in the brand parameters, you can lean in and fail faster and cheaper than using traditional approaches.”


Obviously, a company must also be creative, have strong leaders with drive and a product worth selling. And as Mr. Levin said, “I don’t know if you can replace hard work with anything.”

Snack nation always changing

Because Americans are snacking more rather than eating full meals, they’re looking for greater variety of snacks that satisfies their desire for healthfulness as well as indulgence. The “State of Snacking” report said that nearly two-thirds of consumers prefer to eat many small meals instead of a few large ones, and 85% of global consumers eat at least one snack each day for sustenance and one for indulgence.


“Over the course of time, snacks have changed dramatically in terms of what they are because technology has changed so much,” said Lynn Dornblaser, director of innovation and insight, Mintel. “One of the biggest consumer behaviors that really stands out to me is how for the US market, we snack all the time.”


Just 10 years ago, she said, consumer data defined super snackers as those eating four to six snacks a week. Now people are eating that many snacks a day. Hostess Brands, Lenexa, Kan., recently said its research found 18 distinctive consumer snacking occasions.


“With busy lifestyles, with both members of the household working, they’re more time-constrained,” Mr. McAlpine said. “So I think the days of the three square meals a day are long gone. People are eating more frequently and smaller portions at more times of the day.”


Mr. Spannuth said he’s seen a fair number of trends that have come and gone.


“Since I’ve been here — it’s not just exclusive to pretzels, more the snack category — is all the trends between flavor trends, health trends, gluten-free, the changes of oil,” he said. “That’s probably the only thing we’ve changed in our recipe. It went from lard to hydrogenated soybean oil, and then trans fat became a bad thing, and we went to canola oil. Then canola oil became an issue, so we went to non-GMO high-oleic sunflower oil.”


Many brands are finding the balance between tasty and good for you.


“The desire for organic foods is here to stay, and it’s going to continue to grow as people become more conscious of what they put in their bodies,” Mr. Levin said. “But I still think people when they’re buying a snack, they’re looking to get satisfied, and they oftentimes want that indulgent snack. It’s their treat.”


He said that although the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brought people home and eating meals together, the grab-and-go mentality is still present, and snacks are a good fit for that.


He said the definition of a snack will evolve, an opinion shared by Ms. Dornblaser.


“There are so many more choices now. There aren’t any rules about what a snack is. Anything can be a snack,” she said. “Sometimes when we ask consumers, ‘What do you snack on?’ Cheese and fruit are at the top of the list. It can be grain-based snacks, it can be fried snacks, it can be produce, it can be a beverage. A beverage is often a snack, depending on what it is. What a snack is has changed a lot.”


For instance, she said that products are crossing category lines. That includes items such as Ritz crackers now being offered as chips, yogurt and cottage cheese adding grain-based mix-ins, or snacks that include pretzels and hummus in one package.


“To me the most important thing that’s different now than it was in the past is that snacking is a behavior. It’s not a category,” she added.


And many agree that the BFY products will grow as brands explore more ways to deliver healthful ingredients through the expansion of base ingredients.


“It’s not just about snacks being corn-based or potato-based or wheat flour-based,” Ms. Dornblaser said. “There are so many more base ingredients whether it’s different kinds of grains, beans and pulses. That to me seems like a big change because in some cases it makes the products very, very different.”

Leveling the playing field

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic provided a shot in the arm to the
e-commerce market, which already was growing before March 2020. That’s good news for newer and startup snack makers that may not have access to crowded retail shelves. They can put up their own direct-to-consumer (DTC) websites to get their products noticed.


“Our DTC site allows consumers to engage directly with our brand, learn more about our ‘Be better, do better’ mission and speak with us one on one,” said Stacey Benham, vice president marketing, Quinn Snacks, Boulder, Colo. “As a result, we also gain valuable insights to help us drive new innovation and understand what our consumers expect from our brand.”


Digital brands can ramp up more slowly and don’t need the volume needed to produce a snack that is going on retail shelves.


“E-commerce really has leveled the playing field in that initial startup phase,” said Ryan Quinn, who is a founder and managing partner of Bougie Bakes, Los Angeles, along with his wife, Meghan Quinn. “I don’t think e-commerce can completely replace everything in the food business, but I think it’s a great start that you can get that proof of concept with live sales and direct customer feedback.”


Selling online allows companies to gain quick feedback and understand how their products are doing and being received by customers, said Joe Ens, chief executive officer of HighKey, Orlando, Fla., which started as a digital brand and has moved to retail.


“The unique element that digital does create for a company like ours and others is you can very quickly iterate, you can innovate, you can kill ideas or explode ideas depending on how quickly they succeed, and you’ll know within days or weeks, not months or years,” he said.

Bougie Bakes

Snackers demand sustainability

As the preferences of snackers evolve, so does the definition of better-for-you snacks. Consumers are interested in products that are greener and better for the planet.


“Better-for-you 20 years ago meant low-fat or low-salt,” Mr. McAlpine said. “Now that umbrella encompasses a lot more things. It’s ethically sourced raw materials and ingredients. It’s clean label and non-GMO — all of that. That trend is going to continue as well. People want healthier, but they also want indulgent products. Believe me, we see that. But they want the indulgent product to be more clean label.”


That also extends to the packaging for snacks. Mr. McAlpine said that he’s seen tremendous strides in packaging by extending the shelf life of products as well as the rise in sustainable packaging.


Mr. McAlpine said he thinks that the number of new products will only continue as the world works its way through the pandemic.


“Innovation has slowed up a bit because of COVID, but you take a walk down the grocery store aisle and see how many bars that you have access to,” he said. “You almost see new products every week.”


The last couple of years have produced unprecedented challenges for snack makers.


“Right now is probably a time when the challenges seem the greatest with supply chain, staffing and freight,” Mr. Levin said. “Right now is the most difficult time I’ve seen in my career.”


Although research and development may have suffered lately because of the challenges brought on by the pandemic, he prefers to take a positive view of the situation.


“I’m optimistic that the staffing challenges are going to improve,” he added.


Mr. Spannuth doesn’t expect any reverse of the situation in the foreseeable future.


“I think the shock and awe are going away,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s the new normal right now. We’re starting to see a plateau. We’re still getting price increases. They’re not as often or as much, but we’re still getting price increases.”


One thing the snack industry agrees on is that Americans will remain committed snackers. And that’s great for manufacturers, whether they’re providing healthful snacks, indulgent treats or a bit of both.


“One hundred years ago there weren’t a lot of snack items,” Mr. McAlpine said. “It’s exploded over the last 100 years, but we’ve seen a big expansion in the last 20 years. I’m very bullish. I only see it continuing to increase.”

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Educating the industry

By Laurie Gorton

March 2022

Educating
the industry

When Sosland Publishing added coverage of bakery technology in the late 1970s, it set the stage for today’s industry knowledge authority.

Baking & Snack

Milling & Baking News struck the spark that ignited today’s Baking & Snack magazine when it reported technical papers given at the 1977 International Bread Congress. The coverage ran in various 1978 issues. Although the magazine had reported meetings of the American Society of Bakery Engineers in the past, the Bread Congress accounts proved seminal.


Feedback quickly validated the potential for more examination of such topics. Less than a year later, Baking Equipment Quarterly debuted as a supplement in Milling & Baking News March 13, 1979.


“We got great response from readers and advertisers alike,” said Mike Gude, publisher of Baking & Snack, Milling & Baking News and Food Business News. “Today, the magazine and its digital products are the industry’s knowledge authority. That’s what the magazine’s mission has been from the start.


“Baking & Snack is the indispensable voice of the grain-based foods industry,” he added.

Mission-directed editorial

With a focus on processing and in-plant operations, Baking & Snack covers the development, production, packaging, distribution and operations management of grain-based foods manufacturing. Editorial topics include ingredients, production and packaging technologies, company/plant features, industry news and market trends. It has a circulation of 11,700 print and digital subscribers, audited by BPA, and 75,344 average monthly unique visitors to the bakingbusiness.com website.


The folio of the first issue was 32 pages; today, issues can reach 180 to 220 pages.
In 2021, the magazine reaffirmed its commitment to readers with a new editorial team led by Editor Charlotte Atchley.


“We go to our readers for information to guide and inform our coverage,” she said. “We did this to keep our magazine and digital products relevant. The suppliers to the baking industry are another major resource for our work.”


Ms. Atchley continued, “The magazine’s mission today is what we have striven to be all along: to be the authoritative voice, to support industry growth and to provide readers with ways to improve their businesses, all through publication of actionable information.”

Startup leadership, expertise

Baking Equipment Quarterly began life under the editorial supervision of Gordon Davidson, managing editor of Milling & Baking News, and Mark Sabo, director of publications for Sosland Publishing Co. Milling & Baking News associate editors — John Beal, Laurie Larson and Mary Wickersham — wrote and edited articles. Bob Kalmus supervised advertising sales as Baking Equipment Quarterly general manager, and Mr. Gude served as an advertising representative.


In late 1982, Sosland Publishing acquired Bakers Digest from E.J. Pyler and Siebel Publishing. The company decided to boost Baking Equipment Quarterly to every other month, alternating with Bakers Digest. It was renamed Baking Equipment and became a freestanding magazine a few years later.


In early 1983, Mr. Sabo brought in Laurie Gorton from a competing publisher to edit both bimonthlies. That year, editorial preparation of Baking Directory & Buyer’s Guide shifted to the Baking Equipment staff. That year as well, Josh Sosland joined his family’s company and served for several months as production editor of Baking Equipment before moving to the markets desk at Milling & Baking News; he is now president of the company and editor of its flagship, Milling & Baking News.


In 1983, too, Tom Spooner, a distinguished engineer who had just retired from the presidency of a major bakery equipment company, joined Baking Equipment as a contributing editor, adding his considerable authority to its editorial offerings. Over the years, many well-recognized industry experts graced the magazine pages with their bylines: Donna Berry, Theresa Cogswell, Jeff Dearduff, Jim Kline, Rebeca Lopez-Garcia, Leland Moss, Clyde Stauffer and Richard Stier.


Publishing responsibilities transferred to Mr. Gude a few years later, and the magazine became a monthly.


During the early 1990s, a number of leading baking companies purchased or launched snack food operations. To reflect this reader trend, the magazine changed its identity to Baking & Snack Systems, later simplifying this to Baking & Snack. About this time, Mr. Gude was promoted to publishing director for Baking & Snack. Paul Lattan, who had been hired in 1990 as a sales representative, became Baking & Snack publisher in 1997. He brought in Steve Berne as editor in 1999 and assigned Ms. Gorton new duties as executive editor. In 2010, Mr. Berne joined the Sosland sales staff as associate publisher of Baking & Snack, and Dan Malovany was hired as the magazine’s editor from a competing publication.

Renewing management

As Baking & Snack moved into the 21st century, Joanie Spencer was promoted to editor/managing editor in 2015 from managing editor of bake, a sister Sosland publication. Mr. Sabo retired in 2015 and Ms. Gorton in 2017. A year earlier, Ms. Spencer became editor, and Mr. Malovany ascended to editorial director.


All this changed in mid-2020 with the departure of Ms. Spencer, Mr. Lattan and Mr. Berne. Mr. Malovany was named interim editor to manage the transition for the remainder of 2020, while Mr. Gude was tapped for a “second term” as publisher. With the start of 2021, Ms. Atchley was promoted from senior editor to editor, and Mr. Malovany took the title of executive editor.


Asked to reflect on his return as publisher, Mr. Gude demurred.


“Actually, I never left,” he said. “While my role with Baking & Snack during the past 20 years has been mostly in the background, I continued to serve as publishing director and then publisher emeritus. I’ve been able to follow Baking & Snack’s progress and growth.


“It has become a multi-dimensional and fully integrated print-and-digital publishing platform, deeply committed to serving reader and advertiser alike,” he said.


Ms. Atchley, too, brings years of perspective to her post as editor of Baking & Snack. She joined the magazine 10 years earlier, progressing from assistant editor to associate editor and, most recently, senior editor.


“With my new responsibilities, I am looking forward to working more closely with the whole Sosland team, the other editors and other magazines,” she said, noting projects already underway to collaborate with Mr. Sosland; Eric Schroeder, managing editor of Milling & Baking News; and Keith Nunes, editor of Food Business News. “They are helping us with insight and mentoring,” she observed. We are also working to break down silos and make coverage more robust.”

Legacy of innovation
Bakers Digest, founded as Siebel Technical Review in 1926, was part of that era’s technological revolution that transformed commercial baking from an industry based on craftsmanship to one in which science and technology became increasingly important, according to E.J. Pyler, longtime editor, publisher and owner of Siebel Publishing Co.


Bakers Digest served bakery engineers and production managers by reporting baking science and technology as it developed. It described major scientific findings and innovative technologies in articles written by the scientists and inventors themselves. It often published these accounts some years ahead of commercial implementation.


Many production superintendents regarded Bakers Digest as the industry “bible,” and it became the main source for “Baking Science and Technology,” the textbook used to educate most commercial wholesale bakers and university cereal and food science students. The two-volume book is now available in its fourth edition from Sosland Publishing Co.


Although Mr. Pyler had retired by 1982 when Sosland Publishing acquired Bakers Digest, his son, Richard E. Pyler, PhD, a research chemist at a major brewing company, served as the publication’s technical editor.


The new owner continued the magazine’s every-other-month schedule for several years. Baking Equipment, however, had taken the lead as the baker’s source about equipment technologies. In the early 1990s, it brought in ingredients as an editorial subject, and the role of Bakers Digest diminished further.


The company reduced Bakers Digest’s frequency to an annual special issue, Reference Source filled with statistical data about the use of ingredients. This material was later folded into Baking & Snack’s May issue and supplemented by profiles of R&D departments at leading baking companies.

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As the industry shifts

In its first year, Baking Equipment described itself as “the equipment and engineering magazine for baked foods manufacturers: wholesale bread and cake bakers, cookie and cracker manufacturers, frozen dough producers, snack manufacturers, pasta manufacturers, foodservice bakers.” But as the industry changed, so did the magazine.


“At first, we accepted only machinery advertising, none for ingredients,” Mr. Gude said. Within a few years, however, ingredient companies started asking for space. “I recall the sales manager of a leading ingredient company telling me, ‘Mike, our customers don’t care so much about seeing piles of white powders as they do about the shiny stuff, the machines. That’s what they like. That’s what they want to see. And we want to be there when they do.’ And, yes, he got his ads into Baking & Snack.”


Much can change in 40 years, and much of it is brought about by the periodic International Baking Industry Expositions (IBIE). By participating, the editors of Baking & Snack and Sosland Publishing Co. have learned much, gained industry insight and increased their involvement as the official media provider of this show, the most important Western Hemisphere gathering for wholesale and retail bakers.

Covering major trends

As its primary assignment, Baking & Snack reports about state-of-the-art baking technology, product formulating and the bakeries that put these to work.


Chief among industry trends is the continuing replacement of manual tasks by automated controls and technician labor. Advances in controls described in the magazine pages evolved from mainframes to factory-floor-hardened PCs, programmable controllers, networks and intelligent components and from push buttons to touch screens. Through all of it, Baking & Snack was there. The disciplines of statistical process controls, enterprise resource planning and supply chain management tie plants together to optimize corporate goals and are described frequently in the magazine.


Simultaneously, a rising tide of automation is lifting productivity for all segments of the industry. Bread and buns were the first to replace nuts-and-bolts mechanization with digitally controlled equipment. This automation trend has now altered the production of bagels, cakes, croissants, pastries, pizzas, tortillas and snacks — all reported in the pages of Baking & Snack.


Constant flux characterizes the product trends. Consumer interest in health and wellness, well underway by the early 1980s, is today’s most significant influence on new food product development. The magazine offers a steady diet of articles about this new reality. It has published numerous features about how to make baked goods and snacks that are low fat, high fiber, reduced sodium, high protein, plant based, non-GMO, vegan, organic and made with ancient and whole grains — and covered a veritable tsunami of new ingredients.


“In the past few years, product development has become front and center,” Mr. Gude said. “So, the magazine has broadened its scope in coverage and circulation. We now reach readers in the functions of R&D, new product and process development, packaging and marketing, and the management of these functions, including the c-suite. All these areas affect the equipment and vice versa.”


A related trend, also closely reported in the magazine’s pages, is the burgeoning desire among consumers to avoid chemically derived ingredients. Although popular demand pushes hard for natural ingredients, such changes are not easy. Articles about replacement of dough conditioners, especially bromate, and the use of enzymes have helped bakers address this trend.


The baking industry, like the food industry as a whole, has been profoundly reshaped by government regulations. The Clean Air Act of 1970, for example, forced changes in ovens to cut ethanol emissions, and alterations to rules governing food labels restrict on-package statements of health claims and allergen content. Voluntary standards now address the presence or absence of GMO ingredients. Food safety reform, enacted in 2011 to safeguard nearly every aspect of food plant operations, has been extensively examined in the magazine.


Another industry factor is consolidation.


“This trend has been with us for a long time,” Ms. Atchley said, “but there are still opportunities for outreach to new players.”


Indeed, many of the food processing industry’s newest businesses are in the snack food category. She cited Sosland’s Food Entrepreneur and Food Business News as sources for many editorial leads.

Data-directed editorial

“When I became editor, Dan Malovany and I had extensive conversations about the magazine’s mission but also sought ways to home in on knowledge that readers can use,” Ms. Atchley explained.


The editors and staff writers work closely with Cypress Research and BEMA Intel to base their work on relevant trends in industry data. The magazine’s annual Capital Spending Report is also shapes editorial.


“Website traffic, such as the number of clicks our stories get, is equally helpful,” Ms. Atchley said. “We closely monitor reader attention to get insight into what they want. And we are excited about what we learn from podcast traffic.


“What this means,” she continued, “is that when drawing up our editorial calendar, we are not making assumptions; instead, we are looking at real data from the readers.”


Baking & Snack remains committed to useful coverage of technology and formulating.


“But we now take these subjects to a higher level,” Ms. Atchley said, “to look at issues of processing efficiency, reduction of downtime, improvement in manpower usage and of market impact. That approach is applicable across all sectors.


“The subjects keep changing, which keeps them interesting to readers and ourselves,” she said.

Print, digital synergy

Just as Sosland Publishing was the first trade publisher to adopt computerized editing and makeup technologies, it was also a forerunner in digital products and continues to lead in this space.


“Baking & Snack and Sosland Publishing are the leaders in digital media across the entire food processing industry,” Mr. Gude said. “And there is great synergy between our digital and print efforts. It continues to expand our reach and impact on the industry, and readers can access us in the ways they want, be it digital, print or podcast.”


Baking & Snack’s first podcast, Since Sliced Bread, was launched at the beginning of 2020, and offers a new way to tell the industry’s stories.


“The podcast gives bakers and snack food makers a voice,” Ms. Atchley said. “Articles can have many sources, and you can only give them so many words in the written piece. But with the podcasts, you can dig deeper. Each guest gets 30 minutes to tell their unique stories.”


“Charlotte’s podcast, Since Sliced Bread, is extraordinarily insightful.” Mr. Gude observed.


Other digital products serve additional purposes.


“The Editor’s Pick videos have been very rewarding,” Ms. Atchley observed. “They not only promote the next issue, but they also put a face to the magazine. And we’ve done more video interviews with bakers to add a personal touch to bakery features.”


These digital offerings represent a shift in the past year to make contacts between editor and reader more personal.


“I believe this reflects a shift in society in general to make media connections more personal,” Ms. Atchley explained. “The new tools now being used — Zoom and Microsoft Teams, for example — better convey the passion that our staff has for our stories.”


Emblematic of the editorial team’s commitment to offer readers valuable and practical content, a new editorial feature, Pro Tips, was introduced in 2021.


“We recruited columnists to produce short 200-word pieces for our website,” Ms. Atchley explained.


These are prepared by contributors Rowdy Brixey and Richard Charpentier, plus Harrison Helmick, a graduate student at Purdue University, and several instructors from the AIB International.


“The function of each Pro Tip is to help us connect the readers to the magazine by addressing the challenges they face in formulating, producing and marketing,” Ms. Atchley said. “They serve a different purpose, but one still related to the mission of Baking & Snack. They will help us educate and dive deeper into technical topics.”

Sosland Publishing leads the way to IBIE

The International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE) continues to play a key role in the development of Baking & Snack as the industry’s leading voice.


Not only do the publication’s editors participate in the company’s activities as Official Media Provider to IBIE, but they also take what they learn into the pages of the magazine.


IBIE 2001 first granted Sosland this status.


“We saw an opportunity to deepen our commitment to IBIE, and we ran with it. We were able to step into a great opportunity,” said Mike Gude, publisher of Baking & Snack, Milling & Baking News and Food Business News. “We bring our all-in attitude, subject expertise and editorial resources to promote and cover this event. It’s a unique relationship in all of trade publishing.”


Baking & Snack celebrated its 25th year in business at IBIE 2004.


Before each every-three-years show and during it, Sosland editors tell the baking industry what’s next and what to look for at IBIE.


All of Sosland’s baking-related titles participate. Baking & Snack is assigned the lead role in managing and producing the Sosland editorial projects, including the Show Daily, which is produced on-site at the show in Las Vegas.


“This event offers a good moment to step back and look at the big picture,” said Charlotte Atchley, editor of Baking & Snack. “It helps us check the pulse of the industry and our coverage of it.


“We hope that IBIE 2022 — and iba 2023 — give us back the opportunity to again meet face-to-face with bakers and key industry contacts.”


IBIE will be held in Las Vegas, Sept. 17-22.

Posted on

Food safety’s new age

By Charlotte Atchley

September 2021

Food safety's
new age

With new tools and best practices, the baking industry prepares to take food safety into the digital age.

Baking & Snack

AIB International

Food safety is a concern as old as food itself. In the United States, laws regarding food safety reach back more than 100 years. In 1906, the original Food and Drugs Act as well as the Meat Inspection Act were passed by Congress.

 
Food safety regulations have evolved to reflect changing times, but major themes have remained the same: understanding the safety and nutrition of ingredients, preventing the adulteration of food, ensuring truthful communication to consumers, controlling allergens and foreign materials, and keeping food manufacturing facilities clean. All to keep the US food supply as safe as possible.

 
“We have the safest food supply in the world in the US at the most affordable cost,” said Joe Stout, founder and general manager of Commercial Food Sanitation LLC. “I think it’s a precious gift and industry that we have.”

 
While many of the themes of food safety have remained the same, new challenges have emerged. And to maintain the gift of a safe food supply, food safety practices must evolve to keep up. In the past 10 years, with the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the industry has seen a complete overhaul of the country’s approach to food safety. While the goal may be the same, the tools and approach are brand new.

The kill-step validation process, developed by AIB International, the American Bakers Association and two universities, allows bakeries to prove that the oven or fryer does kill foodborne pathogens. AIB International

Getting proactive

While there have been many landmark shifts in food safety over the past century, the most significant one recently was the passage of FSMA in 2011. From the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s relationship with the industry to the companies’ approaches to food safety, the importance of this law cannot be overstated.

 
“Nothing has positively impacted food safety in the baking industry like FSMA” said Judi Lazaro, senior category director, food safety, AIB International. “The impact has been tremendous. Even though FSMA didn’t go into effect as soon as it was signed into law, in a way it did because consumers and customers expected more from food manufacturers. … It’s the most sweeping change in 70 years.”

 
FSMA was passed in response to several significant food safety events shook the public’s confidence in the US food supply, most notably a 2008 salmonella outbreak traced to a Georgia factory operated by the Peanut Corp. of America. The outbreak resulted in 700 cases of salmonella poisoning and nine deaths. The former chief executive officer of the company was sentenced to 28 years in prison, the harshest sentence handed down for someone responsible for a foodborne illness outbreak.
This incident signaled to both government agencies and the food industry that a systemic shift in how the industry approached food safety was needed. Rather than reacting to incidents, the food industry needed to be more proactive in preventing them. FSMA was designed to provide guidance and tools to ensure that happened.

 
“FSMA was the catalyst for the change, the enhancements, the additions,” explained Lee Sanders, senior vice president, government relations and public affairs, American Bakers Association (ABA). “FDA changed their inspection focus from a snapshot-in-time to a system that is always in place. That’s a completely different approach.”

 
For the first time, the FDA could require comprehensive, science-based preventive controls that included requiring food manufacturers to document and implement these plans. Inspections, testing and records access were new tools FSMA put in the hands of the FDA to ensure oversight, and FDA was given the ability to issue mandatory recalls in the event a company fails to do so voluntarily. Manufacturers faced other consequences as well, such as administrative detention for products potentially in violation of the law, suspension of facility registration, enhanced product tracing and additional record-keeping requirements for high-risk foods.

 
Ms. Sanders explained the new approach: “What systems do you have in place to ensure that your product is always safe, that you have the right staff trained for those critical jobs and that protocols are always being followed so that you’re confident in the product that leaves the production facility?”

 
FSMA also gave the FDA authority to hold imported food to the same standard as domestic products and encouraged the agency to bolster its partnerships with other federal agencies and those at the state and local level. While the food industry experienced a culture shift as it implemented FSMA, FDA’s new focus on partnership required a similar shift in the agency as well.

 
“I think there’s been a concerted effort for FDA to be more open,” Ms. Sanders said of FSMA guidance. “While the nutrition staff at FDA was more accustomed to working with the industry, the food safety staff took more of a compliance approach. The FDA realized it needed to change that culture. … The agency has been open to listening and partnering with us, and having framework in place where we could do that as the whole food industry was critical.”

 
She’s referring to the Food and Beverage Issue Alliance (FBIA), which is a broad coalition of more than 50 US-based food and beverage trade associations that communicate regularly with federal agencies like FDA and the US Department of Agriculture regarding regulations and guidance.

 
“Early on as the FSMA rules came together, we saw the need to bring the food industry together as a whole to dialogue with the FDA to share the challenges we’re seeing and provide an opportunity to weigh in and share information,” said Rasma Zvaners, vice president, regulatory and technical services, ABA. “We may not always agree, but we’re more proactive getting in front of issues and asking questions. I look back, and if we hadn’t had that proactive conversation and structure in place, we wouldn’t have been able to be as nimble in responding to COVID-19 because we knew how to engage with the agency and have an open dialogue.”

 
When it comes to the details of FSMA — and there are many — a few themes emerged that have completely revamped the way the food industry, including the baking sector, thinks about food safety programs. One of the most significant is the emphasis on having preventative controls and documentation that the company is implementing those controls effectively. This forces companies to be proactive and significantly raises accountability, as well as the number of audits and inspections.

 
“FSMA made all companies of all sizes think about their food safety plans, their company’s internal workings and their team’s approach to food safety day-by-day,” Ms. Sanders said. “There are a lot of audits and inspections now, and bakers have to know how to manage those and make sure they’re covering those critical points. Being able to demonstrate to customers that they are doing the right thing every day has been a big driver in all of this.”

 
Audits and inspections aren’t new to the baking industry. Before FSMA, the industry largely followed standards set forth by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and were audited by a third party to confirm those standards were being met.

 
“I don’t think the baking industry was shocked by what was coming from FSMA,” Ms. Lazaro said. “They were surprised by the regulatory action that FDA would now show up and hold them accountable. The industry was previously used to only being held accountable by customers and consumers.”

 
In addition to GFSI audits, bakeries today undergo audits by individual customers as well as FDA inspections and, in many instances, AIB International inspections. The focus has changed too, Ms. Lazaro — who once was an inspector — pointed out.

 
“Now you can’t do business without an independent inspection,” she said. “And they have greatly evolved. When I was a food safety inspector, that meant 75%-80% of my time was on the production floor inspection, and 20% was spent looking at records and programs. Now we focus more on the programs and records and some time on the floor.”

 
Ms. Lazaro warns, however, that this emphasis on inspections and audits could backfire.

 
“I do think there comes a time where we have an audit overload that we are so worried about the audit that we lose sight of what we’re preparing for, which should be prioritizing food safety,” she said.

 
The other piece of FSMA that will come into play next is the focus on modernization and using the technology of today to take food safety to the next level.

 

“The FDA is looking at smarter food safety through its Smarter Food Safety initiative,” Mr. Stout said. “In the age of iPhones, iPads and other computerization, it seems to me that we should be able to have a much brighter and connected food safety program in manufacturing plants. That includes pre-op inspections, recording them, tracking them. The technology has really helped us out on monitoring critical control points. You can see the information live on your desktop and know exactly what’s going on; lab results come in automatically, and all of this saves us time and money and helps us be more efficient.”

Most bakery recalls are related to mislabeling of major allergens. ©monticellllo - stock.adobe.com
1906

Food and Drugs Act and Meat Inspection Act are signed into law.

1907

First Certified Color Regulations list seven colors suitable for food.

1914

In US vs. Lexington Mill and Elevator Co., the Supreme Court bans bleached flour with nitrite residue.

 

1938

The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is passed by Congress, authorizing factory inspections, standards of identity and safe tolerances for unavoidable poisonous substances.

1943

In US vs. Dotterweich, Supreme Court rules responsible officials of a corporation can be prosecuted for violations.

1949

FDA publishes its first guidance to the industry, “Procedures for the Appraisal of the Toxicity of Chemicals in Food.”

1958

FDA publishes the first list of GRAS substances.

1960

Color Additive Amendment requires manufacturers to establish the safety of color additives.

1962

President John F. Kennedy proclaims the Consumer Bill of Rights, including the right to safety, to be informed, the right to choose and the right to be heard.

1971

Saccharin is banned from GRAS list.

1982

FDA publishes “Toxicological Principles for the Safety Assessment of Direct Food Additives and Color Additives Used in Food.”

1990

Nutrition Labeling and Education Act requires all packaged food to have nutrition labeling and health claims consistent with terms defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

2004

Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act is passed, requiring labeling of any food that contains a protein from peanuts, soybeans, cow’s milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts and wheat.

2011

Food Safety Modernization Act is passed.

2021

Sesame is added to the list of major allergens.

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Challenges for the future

Building off the foundation laid by FSMA, the FDA announced its blueprint for the New Era of Smarter Food Safety in July 2020. This blueprint — a PDF document that bakers can find on FDA’s website — outlines FDA’s approach to food safety going forward. It leans heavily on the processes put in place by FSMA but also focuses on four core elements: tech-enabled traceability, smarter tools and approaches for prevention and outbreak response, new business models and retail modernization, and food safety culture.

 
“The New Era of Smarter Food Safety is an approach to bending the curve of foodborne illness through the use of new technologies and approaches,” said Frank Yiannas, deputy FDA commissioner.

 
This new era is ushered in by the final rule of FSMA that needs to be implemented. The Traceability Rule, currently under review, digitizes traceability and provides transparency across the supply chain.

 Companies that manufacture, process, pack or hold food on the Food Traceability List will capture required data points, store them electronically or in paper records for 24 months. Companies must also share key data elements with other partners in the supply chain.

 
“The vision for the FDA is that trading partners would be able to speak the same language through the standardization of what they are calling critical tracking events and key data elements,” said Julie McGill of FoodLogicQ during an educational session at the American Society of Baking’s technical conference earlier this year. “Tech-enabled traceability will enable companies to meet the expectations of this new era of smarter food safety and eventually get to the place where interoperability is within those systems.”

 
While previous FSMA rules have left room for different industries to adapt their existing processes, this proposed rule will call for industry to conform to FDA.

 
“FDA has been good about setting broad parameters, and individual food sectors can tweak their best practices to fit regulations, rather than FDA being overly prescriptive,” Ms. Zvaners said. “We support food safety, but we strongly encourage FDA to keep it simple. We feel that some of this may be overly prescriptive.”

 
While the public comments are closed for this rule, the FDA has not issued a final rule, but has until November 2022 to do so.

 
FDA’s blueprint also will explore using technology and data in prevention and outbreak response, but also promoting safety in new business models like e-commerce and the expanding market for food delivery. These accelerated markets pose new challenges for the safe handling of food. Some of these business models were new or nonexistent when FSMA was signed into law, and therefore aren’t adequately addressed.
While most of the baking industry uses a kill step such as the oven or fryer to control pathogens, that fatal peanut butter tragedy of 2008 has everyone re-thinking pathogens and what high-risk really means.

 
“Peanut butter wasn’t considered a high-risk food before that because it is a low water activity product,” said Meaghan Meyer, senior vice president of food safety and quality for Indianapolis-based CraftMark Bakery and co-chair for ABA’s food technical regulatory affairs professional group. “But science is showing us that pathogens survive in low water activity products, and there is a significant concern of post-kill step contamination of products with pathogens. This contamination can happen from contaminated raw material added after the kill step or post-kill step contamination from an environmental factor in the bakery.”

 
The increasingly complex global supply chain will also be under the microscope of food safety moving forward. This has become even more important considering the recent challenges the supply chain has experienced.


“The supply chain is more complicated than ever before as we source raw materials from multiple suppliers across all parts of the world,” Ms. Meyer said. “Ensuring that we have a safe, consistent supply is more important than it has ever been.”


As bakers and other food manufacturers continue to endure workforce challenges, work safety culture, the fourth pillar of the blueprint, will become even more critical. All the protocols and procedures can be in place, but without a culture of food safety, they will not be effective.

 
“The baking industry is feeling the pinch of tight employment resources,” Ms. Meyer said. “The shortage of workers is hitting us hard and causing increased turnover, and bakers are turning to temp workers to fill that gap. That leads to the need for additional training and resources to make sure that no mistakes are made.”

 
While FDA plans to work on best practices going forward, GFSI published its “A Culture of Food Safety” paper in 2018, which provides broad guidelines on establishing and fostering a culture of food safety. Buy-in at every level of the company is key as culture is a top-down initiative. Communication of expectations and follow-through are other key points to developing a workplace culture.

 
CraftMark’s top leaders are involved in the food safety teams, and every member of the bakery team must attend food safety culture training to understand the company’s priorities.

 
“It ultimately is ensuring that our actions match our words,” Ms. Meyer said. “Engaging employees at all levels of the organization to understand why food safety is critical to success and then reinforcing that through conversations and training.”

 
CraftMark follows this up with not only audits but also employee surveys to get feedback on their perception of our food safety culture.

 
“Do they feel like they’re listened to? Are they asked to compromise on food safety?” Ms. Meyer said, giving examples. “This is just one of the outlets we give our employees to report back to us.”

 
Another key part of food safety is the sanitation team, and a culture that prioritizes food safety will be critical to keeping employees on this team.
“How do you motivate the sanitation team and help them feel good about what they do because you can’t replace the sanitation team,” Mr. Stout said. “You can automate mixing, slicing, packaging, but it’s really hard to automate sanitation. So the question is how do we get those people in place and motivated to do their jobs well.”

 
A culture that prioritizes food safety will also prioritize sanitation and show the team that their work is valued. Mr. Stout also recommended bakers take on an attitude of smart sanitation: that is sanitation is the responsibility of everyone in the bakery, not just the sanitation team.
“We need to move closer to that, and that would be part of the cultural revolution that we need that FDA talks about in its New Era of Food Safety,” he said.

 
All of this comes back to training, communication and accountability, which will become pivotal as bakers bring on new employees — many of whom have never worked in food manufacturing — and move forward into this new frontier of proactive food safety.

 
“I don’t think anyone goes to work not to do a good job, and that is true of food safety,” Ms. Lazaro said. “Mistakes happen because people aren’t trained properly or held accountable. With the increasingly inexperienced workforce, I hope the entire industry pays attention to education.”

 
The future of food safety may be leaning on high-tech digital tools, but it will be rooted in the things that keep bakeries running smoothly: efficient processes, well-communicated protocols and effective training.

Salmonella was at the heart of the peanut butter contamination in 2008 that killed nine and spurred the US government to pass the Food Safety Modernization Act. FDA
Posted on

Leading the Pack

By Charlotte Atchley

August 2021

Leading the
Pack

Whether increasing production line capacity or reducing plastic waste, sealing in freshness remains at the heart of packaging.

Baking & Snack

Bundy Baking Solutions

Packaging does so much for a bakery or snack product. First and foremost, it protects it, and ideally prolongs shelf life so that consumers can enjoy a baked good or snack at its peak quality. But packaging also can communicate to consumers about a brand and provide new ways for them to enjoy the product, whether for the convenience of a more mobile lifestyle or variety packs for family members with different tastes.

 
“We ask packaging to do a lot of things: promote the product, protect, transport, provide information of the product,” said Tom Egan, vice president, industry services, PMMI. “You want to know what’s in the product, whether that’s calories or potential allergens. Packaging provides all of that.”

 
Many packaging innovations of the past 100 years have arrived to meet those needs, whether that’s increasing throughput on production lines, extending shelf life or delivering the information consumers want. And packaging innovation continues to meet the food industry’s needs for the future.

While marketing may have changed, the original bag-in-box packaging for cereal hasn’t changed much since Kellogg Company first used it in the early 20th Century. Kellogg Company

A need for speed

The first patent for a pre-fabricated carton was issued in 1879 to Robert Gair, and it would be used by Nabisco in 1896 to package the company’s crackers. In 1906, Kellogg Company, Battle Creek, Mich., used the cardboard box to store its Toasted Corn Flakes, implementing a packaging design that hasn’t really changed in more than 100 years. In some ways, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.


Just because the carton worked so well doesn’t mean companies stopped innovating. On the contrary, the packaging industry has seen leaps in innovation, particularly automation, that has enabled exponential growth for the baking and snack industry.
“You need automation in order to mass produce not only the product but also the package,” Mr. Egan said. “So automation, the machines themselves even before we get to electronic automation, is what really is driving the growth of baking and snack.”


Form/fill/seal technology empowered bakers and snack manufacturers to package product at an accelerated rate. The vertical FFS machine was patented by Walter Zwoyer in 1936. Mr. Zwoyer worked at a candy factory and was looking for a way to quickly package individual candies when he developed the machine.


“When you can package products at a higher rate on VFFS, all the rest of the equipment has to run at a faster rate,” Mr. Egan explained. “Allowing multiple lanes to be formed at once improves throughput and expands the market opportunities.”
Robotics promise the next leap when it comes to increasing production and streamlining the packaging department. While the first packaging robots were deployed in the 1960s and ’70s, they have taken some time to catch on. Schubert’s Robby the Robot demonstration at a trade show in the 1970s showed the industry the potential of robotics in the packaging department.


“What Schubert did in the confectionery market was demonstrate the ability to do a higher speed of a combination pack whether it’s the solid chocolate or combination of solid and filled chocolate,” Mr. Egan explained. “That allowed the industry to expand and increase the number of SKUs it was producing.”


By automating the packaging department, bakers and snack manufacturers were able to make their production floors more flexible and offer more products, packaged in different formats.

Keeping it fresh

And then there’s sliced bread and the bread bag itself. The original bread slicer dates back to 1928 and was developed by Frederick Rohwedder and perfected by Gustav Papendick, who added the capability to wrap the bread in wax paper and package it in cardboard trays. In 1930, Wonder brought sliced bread to the entire nation, which continues to be a colloquial measure of innovation … “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”


The convenience of sliced bread was a hit, but keeping sliced bread from going stale too quickly was a challenge and required packaging that preserved its softness. From wax paper to cellophane to polyethylene, materials have evolved to keep bread fresh even sliced. The 1960s brought plastic technology and bread bagging technology to automatically package bread in its now universal packaging format, a polyethylene bag with a twist tie or clip.


“If it weren’t for certain plastic bags, we wouldn’t have been able to have a 7-day shelf life for bread instead of a 2-day shelf life,” said Brian Wagner, co-founder and principal at PTIS, LLC.


According to Tom Dunn, managing director, Flexpacknology, efficient bread bag packaging required a coordinated effort of several needs. The industry had to develop the side-weld bag making process for printed polyethylene film and implement a wicketing method to stack bags for transport to the bakery. For the actual bagging process, machines had to remove bags from those wickets, open them with a puff of air and push a loaf of bread inside before applying a closure. All of this came to fruition in the 1960s when Alvin Formo developed an automatic poly bagging machine that was then tweaked after acquiring the patent rights to a bread bagging machine developed by Roy Willard and Bill Noyes.


While FFS machines and bread baggers may have met the needs of preserving shelf life and speeding up production, the stand-up pouch, introduced in the ’60s, also brought new form and the ability for resealability to snack and bakery products. The stand-up pouch opened up the possibility of packaging beyond the carton.


“The pouch allows flexibility to not only display the product in a whole different way at endcaps and points of purchase, but it also allows the convenience to carry it,” Mr. Egan explained. “When you consume half the contents, the pouch collapses and takes up less space. It can be squeezed and fit into spaces a rigid container can’t.”


Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) offers the potential to be the next frontier when it comes to keeping food fresher for longer. This technology replaces the oxygen inside a bag, like a bread bag, with a gas mixture that will stave off staling. It originated in the UK and Denmark in the 1970s and continues to gain application across the food industry. In the 1990s, Mr. Wagner worked with the United States military to use MAP to extend the shelf life of bread and cake products delivered to soldiers in the field.


“We developed a MAP extended shelf life technology that really required just removing the oxygen so mold couldn’t grow and doing some formulation work so staling couldn’t happen,” he said. “In the early ’90s, we developed a three-year shelf life bread and cake item, which is super relevant for soldiers who hadn’t been able to have bread and cake in the field until that time.”

All about the consumer

While packaging may have started out as an answer to staling and molding food, ultimately, Mr. Wagner said, it’s about serving a consumer need, whether improving soldier morale or delivering a satisfying treat.
“The consumer is No. 1 because if it doesn’t taste good, and it doesn’t deliver on brand promise, the consumer isn’t going to buy it,” Mr. Wagner said. “Packaging plays a huge role in the consumer mind in the bakery world.”
Packaging communicates a lot to the consumer. Whether it’s the brand design and colors on the packaging or the nutrition and ingredients listed on the packaging, consumers turn to packaging to tell them a lot about the product they are looking to purchase. While eye-catching graphics, a brand story and nutritional information are obvious elements to communicate with packaging, even packaging integrity is critical to tell consumers something about the safety and freshness about what is inside.
“We had an issue with frozen desserts where the cartons were getting crushed at retail and the perception that gave consumers about the brand and how that would impact consumer trust,” Mr. Wagner said.
A secured, sturdy package communicates to consumers that the product inside is protected and fresh. A resealable and tamper-evident closure states that they can trust what’s inside is safe to eat and will stay fresh longer. Mr. Dunn pointed out that longer supply chains, bakery and snack manufacturer consolidation and retail labor costs have also all spurred packaging innovation.
“Sturdy plastic trays overwrapped with barrier films replaced paper ‘dump bags’ and paperboard cartons for baked cookies as shock and vibration forces during transportation increased,” he explained.
Universal Product Codes (UPCs) in 1973 standardized product identification and tracking and leveled the playing field for products in front of the consumer.
“The printed UPC on snack and bakery packages gave powerful customer loyalty opportunities to merchandisers at the expense of consumer goods brand equity,” Mr. Dunn explained. “As a result, store brands now compete effectively with national brands.”

Packaging machines, like this cartoner from 1922, enabled bakers and snack manufacturers to reach new speeds and throughput numbers. PMMI
Wonder introduced sliced bread in 1930 nationwide, kicking off the industrial baking industry and the need for effective packaging. Bundy Baking Solutions

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Packaging of the future

Packaging has come a long way from the tried-and-true carton and the wax paper bread wrapper. Machines and materials have pushed the limits of automated production and extended shelf life of products and made food more convenient for people to eat and store.
Extended shelf life, increased throughput, greater flexibility and added convenience will always be at the forefront of packaging needs, but today’s challenges have evolved to other consumers.
Sustainability is at the forefront with plastic being public enemy No. 1 in some cases. As populations grow, resources dwindle and consumers become more concerned with waste. More consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies than ever are making commitments to seek out packaging made with recycled or other materials that are less harmful to the environment. The Consumer Brands Association (CBA) reports that the 25 largest CPG companies have all made commitments to minimize packaging or reuse materials, and 80% of those companies have set goals of using fully recyclable packaging by 2030.
“There is going to be a billion more people on this planet, and we won’t have the resources,” Mr. Wagner said. “That’s been driving innovation around materials. How do we use less plastic, different plastics or design packaging so it can be reused?”
Before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, sustainability was a top concern for consumers, especially when it came to packaging. According to a consumer study by CBA, this is still true, although there is some more nuance. Eighty-two percent of Americans said they were concerned with the environment in 2020, down from 90% the year before, and 80% said they are concerned about single-use plastics compared with 87% in 2019. Consumers seem to understand that plastic has its place — especially in keeping food safe in a pandemic. CBA’s study found that 50% of Americans said recycling became even more important during the pandemic to handle the increase in single-use plastic and packaging, while 45% said it was equally as important as before.
Packaging made from recyclable materials, lighter gauge materials, bioplastics derived from plants and chemical recycling technologies are all on the table for sustainability, and new technology is constantly being developed to pursue those goals.
While the pandemic may have brought nuance to the sustainable packaging need, it jumpstarted e-commerce and how omnichannel will influence the packaging of the future. This growing channel has changed the supply chain but also increased consumer expectations of convenience and product quality.
“You’re buying something online, and you want it to arrive exactly the same way that resulted from the traditional packaging and supply chain process, but the number of touchpoints and handling could change significantly,” Mr. Egan explained. “The number of times the package is handled goes up, and the package still needs to protect the product.”
Resolving that issue is driving much of packaging innovation happening today.
“There are so many companies trying to figure out how to extend the shelf life of any product to meet the needs of e-commerce,” Mr. Wagner said. “Like shipping a hamburger to your house and packaging it so it will still be fresh. Any way you do it, even insulated packaging for frozen goods, it’s going to be expensive, but there is a lot of innovation going on because it’s a huge market need.”
The digitalization of manufacturing will also influence future innovations of packaging. Invisible codes on packaging will be able to deliver more information to consumers as well as send data back to manufacturers. Production lines are becoming more integrated, delivering production data to operators in real time.
“Digital transformation is causing us to rethink the way we do everything,” Mr. Wagner said. “You can monitor packaging uptime and downtime and make immediate changes instead of waiting a week when you’re reviewing your data. All of these possibilities are getting less expensive, and we will be able to use them in so many new ways that will drive value and take waste out of the system.”
Some innovations over the past 100 years have been industry-changing events, but Mr. Egan pointed out that packaging is always improving even if in small ways.
“There are constant incremental improvements being made all the time,” he said. “The industry is always looking for ways we can do better. We still need packaging that will protect, promote and improve the point of use at the consumer level.”
Change, incremental or revolutionary, for packaging is on the horizon.

As consumers become increasingly concerned with packaging and food waste, the need for sustainable packaging will drive future innovations. Rawpixel Ltd.
Stand-up pouches were developed in the 1960s and offer flexible packaging for bakery and snack products. Campbell Snacks
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Around the World

By Charlotte Atchley

May 2021

Around the
World

Globalization expands both consumer experience and business opportunities for the baking industry.

Baking & Snack

Europastry

Technology has grown by leaps and bounds; just a look at the past 10 years proves how much has changed. As technology has leapt forward, it has shrunk the world for consumers but expanded it for business, and the baking and snack industry is no different.

 
“Globalization has had a huge impact on consumption trends in bakery and snack,” said Carolina Moré, marketing director, Europastry USA, Long Island, NY. “There are products that doubtless become global such as baguettes, donuts and croissants, products one can find in almost every part of the world.”

 
While certain bakery and snack products are ubiquitous, each is tweaked to target specific regions’ preferences in flavors, textures and health concerns.

 
“Innovation and scientific research, especially when focused on improving production and nutrition, have also intensified, becoming requirements for companies with international scope to respond to global demands while remaining competitive,” said Rafael Juan, chief executive officer of Vicky Foods, a global company based in Valencia, Spain, that owns the Dulcesol brand.

 
And as globalization impacts consumer trends, it also has become a major part of doing business. From supply chain optimization to expanding in emerging markets, baking and snack companies are looking worldwide for growth opportunities.

Technology has brought the world closer to consumers and stretched supply lines and business opportunities for the baking industry.

Doing business globally

As the baking industry has grown, companies have looked beyond their home country’s borders for expansion opportunities.

 
Today’s multinational companies like Europastry, headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, and Vicky Foods span the globe with their bakery and snack brands.


“In our case, internationalization has been a key aspect of our business strategy,” Ms. Moré said. “It has allowed us to grow in countries such as the United States and the Netherlands through our different acquisitions.”

 
This has become a business strategy for many larger food manufacturing companies. Grupo Bimbo, Mexico City, the largest baking company in the world, has a presence in 33 countries, a far cry from its humble beginnings as a family-owned bakery 75 years ago. And it continues to grow through acquisitions around the world, most recently acquiring a production plant in Medina del Campo, Spain, from Cerealto Siro Foods and Modern Foods in India. In a call with investment analysts, Daniel Servitje, chief executive officer and chairman of Grupo Bimbo, said the acquisition in Spain would enable the company to enter that region’s sweet baked goods private label market. The company also expects growth to come from Brazil, Russia, India and China, as it reported to investors in the fourth quarter of 2020.

 
Other major players are also finding opportunities around the world. At the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference earlier this year, Mondelez International, Deerfield, Ill., reported record share gains in chocolate in the United Kingdom and cookies in the US and China. The company’s Oreo brand most notably has room to grow in other markets, said Dirk Van de Put, chairman and chief executive officer.


“We are leaders in the US and China, but in other markets, we are under-indexed with significant opportunities,” he explained in a call with investors.

 
For Gruma, the Monterrey, Mexico-based company, which owns Irving, Texas-based Mission Foods, reported seeing future demand in Europe and growth for its pizza business in Asia and Australia.

 
“We are producing not only for the retail, which is growing, but also in a very important way, we are providing pizza bases for most of the pizza, let’s say, restaurant chains in that area,” Raul Cavazos Morales, chief financial officer, told analysts during a Feb. 25 conference call about the company’s pizza bases business. “Now we are introducing these products in the US. We will start to also offer to the market the pizza bases as well in Europe.”


Much of the room for growth in baking and snack categories is found in emerging countries, Mr. Juan explained.

 
“Generally speaking, emerging countries currently represent the greatest business opportunity for the snack industry for two reasons: their demographic growth and their increasing income and purchasing power,” he observed.


Many expect the Asia region to dominate sales in the coming years, specifically China.

 
“We all understand that certainly the Chinese market is still a growing market and expect there to be a real growth opportunity,” said Chuck Metzger, chief executive officer, Hearthside Food Solutions, Downers Grove, Ill. “We are seeing multinational companies building plants there, especially in the baking sector.”

 
In its 2020 bakery report of the Asia Pacific region, Euromonitor showed that baked good sales experienced healthy growth from 2015-2020, largely thanks to China. The research firm expects the category to expand in China in 2021 as well as the entire region.

 
During a virtual presentation at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference, General Mills, Minneapolis, reported it saw opportunity in core markets such as France, the UK, Australia, China, Brazil, India and North America.


Globalization certainly provides these major players with plenty of new markets to play in and sell their products, but it also offers new suppliers for ingredients and other raw materials. The opening up of the global supply chain over the past few decades has helped companies cut costs.

 
“One positive aspect is the ability to boost competitiveness now that raw materials can be bought from every corner of the globe,” Mr. Juan said.

 
This opens the door to cheaper raw materials and labor costs by moving production capacity internationally. This global supply chain, however, doesn’t come without risk and trade-offs. Transparency and traceability become paramount as countries put in place more food safety regulations, such as the US’s Food Safety Modernization Act. Bakers must vet international suppliers and create a paper trail to prove food safety standards are being met. 

 

“We’ve had to shift more company resources to keep up with those regulations and vet suppliers against the regulations,” Mr. Metzger said of the challenge.

 
And the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic frayed the edges of this interconnected supply chain. While a globalized supply chain would seem insulated against world events that are isolated, a pandemic impacts every part of the world, from the source of the ingredients to processing and shipping. As baking companies reevaluate the vulnerabilities revealed by the pandemic, Mr. Metzger believes the industry will move to a hybrid supply chain approach.

 
“It’s going to be a healthy balance between domestic and global suppliers; I don’t think there will be a full pivot back to domestic,” he said. “Companies will split their supply chain between domestic and low-cost, global models. Companies will become more strategic in terms of how they think about their supply in critical areas.”

 

This can also look like partnering with suppliers who are local to the area of a specific production facility. Europastry operates with a business model of “think global, act local.”

 
“Although we are a large company, we work with local suppliers and strive to make the entire value chain a more sustainable process,” Ms. Moré said.

Sustainability in packaging, supply chain and production is increasingly important to consumers regardless of where they live. Vicky Foods
Some baked goods, like croissants, donuts, baguettes and, increasingly, the tortilla, have become ubiquitous the world over. Europastry

Catering to a global consumer base

As baking companies reach more international consumers with their products, they must tailor them to each region’s tastes. While some trends have gotten global traction — clean label and health and wellness — the specifics can change from place to place.

 
“Clean label and organic have been on the rise in consumer trends and are even more important now,” Ms. Moré said, referencing the pandemic. “Health and wellness are important to today’s consumers. Whole grain, vegan and fiber-rich products are on the rise as consumers are changing their diets as they become more health conscious.”


In Grupo Bimbo’s fourth quarter presentation to investors, the company reported that it sees growth for the US market in organic and gluten-free claims on baked goods, while Western Europe gravitated toward claims like whole grain and high fiber breads. Reduced fat and sugar claims are also popular in Western Europe, according to a report on 2020 bakery by Euromonitor. Euromonitor also reported that health and wellness grew in the minds of Greek consumers as more consumers in that country are becoming interested in veganism.

 
While these universal trends may be on the rise, how they play out in specific products differs, depending on the country.

 
“Our products must adapt to each country’s consumption habits,” Mr. Juan said. “At Vicky Foods, we do this by adjusting our recipes, either by adding or removing ingredients or changing the flavors of the existing products accepted in those countries. We also test and launch new products that reflect local trends with the collaboration and expertise of our partners in those markets.”

While some trends and products reach across borders, the flavors and textures often must be tweaked to meet local consumers’ tastes, as is the case with Mondelez International’s Oreo cookies.

Europastry accomplishes this with its four innovation centers, or Cereal Centers, which are located strategically around the world with two in Spain and one in both the Netherlands and the United States. Teams of food scientists, nutritionists, chefs and bakers work independently on products that will suit their markets.

 

Those that are perfected can find new markets around the world when appropriate.

 
“Our distribution structure allows us to get to know these products in other countries so we can innovate internationally and remain at the forefront of bakery innovation,” Ms. Moré said.

 
To address the ever-changing, vague definition of natural and clean label, Europastry keeps its eyes on three key pillars to guide its innovation in this space: heeding traditional baking recipes, respecting the preparation procedures of our master bakers and preserving the best flavors.

 
While health and wellness might be at the forefront of consumers’ minds around the world, both Europastry and Vicky Foods also see a movement toward supporting local businesses and supply chains.

 
“In recent months, consumers have been very vocal about advocating for local products,” Mr. Juan said. “Also, nostalgia, which has facilitated the revival of products that were successful in the past.”

 
This has also been reflected in the fact that Mr. Juan said they have noticed local companies gaining more market share in recent years as more mature markets see a surge of local brands.

 
Despite this interest in nostalgia, health and wellness and supporting local brands, Europastry noted there is room for innovation.

 
“People still want to try new things; they are open to indulgences and innovation,” Ms. Moré said. “All-time classic products such as brioche or indulgent products like anything filled with chocolate or our range of more rustic artisanal breads made with sourdough and long fermentation times, all of these are guaranteed successes.”

 
While the pandemic may have shifted the global baking industry around, its global strength cannot be denied.

 
“It’s a multi-billion-dollar business that’s growing around the world,” Mr. Metzger said. “It’s not a flat or declining business, especially in the US, and globally there’s more potential. The potential to expand into developing markets is very high.”

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Added value becomes nonnegotiable for global companies

Consumers around the world are demanding one thing more and more from food manufacturers: sustainably and ethically produced food.

 

 Sustainability programs, transparency across supply chain and using buying power to improve agriculture practices have increasingly shown up in corporate mission statements. Grupo Bimbo, for example, is well-known for its commitment to be a “sustainable, highly productive and deeply humane company.”

 
The Mexico City-based company sets lofty sustainability goals—100% renewable electric power, 100% recyclable, biodegradable or compostable packaging by 2025 — and creates programs to support employees. In its 2020 Q4 investor presentation, Grupo Bimbo reported that 100% of its facilities in the United States and 85% of facilities in Mexico are powered by renewable energy while it has also reduced packaging by more than 3.3 million kgs in the past 10 years.

 
Europastry, Barcelona, Spain, has created the Responsible Wheat label to identify best practices in wheat farming. This means supporting local farmers, using certified seeds, reducing fertilizers, implementing crop rotation practices and traceability from farm to table. The company has currently dedicated 5,300 hectares to Responsible Wheat and aims to increase that number to 20,000 by 2025.


“Our quest for sustainability is a given,” said Carolina Moré, marketing director, Europastry. “We are increasingly committed to drastically reducing not just the carbon footprint of our activity but also that of the entire value chain.”

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Passing the Test of Time

By Dan Malovany

April 2021

Passing the
Test of Time

For a legendary family business, embracing change while respecting its heritage remains the secret to longevity and ongoing success.

Baking & Snack

Sometimes it takes an unwavering hand for family bakeries to persevere through the best and worst of times.


In 1920 during the Spanish flu, German immigrant Herman Seekamp purchased a little Chicago bakery called Clyde’s Delicious Donuts. Fast forward to last year, when the Addison, Ill.-based company and one of the nation’s leading donut producers celebrated its centennial, this time again in the middle of another pandemic.


Now Kim Bickford, chief executive officer and third generation owner, took his turn to guide the bakery through another tough patch in the company’s storied history. He thought of his grandfather, who led the bakery through the Great Depression by maintaining an optimistic attitude and a cautious approach to the business. That’s a proven formula that’s worked so well over the years.


“When the pandemic hit last year, one of the important things that I said to the organization was, ‘This company has been through a lot in the past 100 years, and we’re going to get through this as well.’ That’s a steady message that I tried to share with our team,” noted Mr. Bickford, who’s been with the company for 44 years.


“I’m not patting myself on the back, but that’s the thing you have to do when you’re in a position of a family business where you care about the people who helped make you successful, and you have to reassure them that you’re going to be successful going forward,” he added.

“We’re conservative in our business, and we take care of our customers and our employees. Those are the things that help a family-owned business survive.”


Maintaining a sense of history and addressing new challenges allow family-owned bakeries like Clyde’s Delicious Donuts to focus on tomorrow, noted Josh Bickford, executive vice president, strategic initiatives and fourth generation family member.


“Even though we’re a family business, what’s best for the business comes first,” he explained.

“Having a lot of mutual respect in the family has made that conversation easier at any given point. We have never been afraid to pivot or change with industry trends.”

Breaking the rules

Too many legacy businesses, however, get stuck in the past.


“You’ve heard of the 100-year rule that says, ‘We have always done it that way.’ We try to get away from that type of thinking,” Josh Bickford said. “We have to have new ideas.”


This mindset is one of the many reasons why some family bakeries succeed and others do not, especially when faced with one of those many watershed moments in a company’s history. For Clyde’s, the latest turning point came just a few years ago, when the donut producer pivoted from fresh to frozen distribution to serve the shifts in the in-store bakery channel.


“That’s allowed us to grow dramatically because we reached new markets,” Kim Bickford said.


Pivoting is not a catchy phrase that suddenly became popular for Neri’s Bakery Products. Anthony M. Neri, general manager for the Port Chester, NY-based bakery, said it has been a key for survival for this family business that was founded in 1910. He’s a member of the fourth generation involved in the family business with Brett Neri-Ferraro, head of human resources; Anthony Frank Neri, plant manager, and Salvatore Neri Jr., manager of the sweet goods department.


“You always have to keep evolving and keep up with the industry,” Anthony Neri observed. “With everything that’s going on, we shifted to a lot of individually wrapped items, which weren’t as big in demand five years ago as they are today.”


One of the company’s pivotal moments came in the early 2000s, when his father Dominick, now president, and uncle Paul Neri, vice president, shifted the business to contract manufacturing for major food companies from fresh independent deliveries to delis, diners and pizza joints at night.


“We never stopped providing those normal route jobbers at night,” Anthony Neri recalled. “We diversified. We no longer had all of our eggs in one basket.”


That decision paid off in a huge way during last year’s pandemic-driven shifts in the market.


“There are a lot of smaller family-owned players that might not be around now,” he said. “If you are solely surviving on those pizza places and diners, you may be in trouble today.”


For Flowers Foods, which celebrated its centennial in 2019, the transformational moment came in 1968 when the family’s second-generation owners took then-called Flowers Baking Co. public.


“It gave Flowers a way to finance growth and acquisitions as well as make capital investments needed to stay competitive,” said Brad Alexander, chief operating officer of the Thomasville, Ga.-based company. “Looking back, going public was the one action Bill and Langdon Flowers took that all but ensured the company would survive the coming consolidation in the baking industry.”


As a publicly held company, Mr. Alexander added, Flowers became answerable to its shareholders, resulting in a renewed emphasis on accountability and professionalism. It began to actively mentor and promote younger employees into management positions and hire people with a business education and experience.


“Talking to people who worked for Flowers at that time, you will hear that the ‘Flowers family’ culture created by Bill and Langdon did not change when the company went public,” Mr. Alexander said.

“Fortunately, they were able to keep that strong sense of teamwork, commitment to hard work and the values of integrity and respect. Employees were offered the opportunity to purchase stock and many of them did.”


During the flurry of industry consolidations through the next few decades, Flowers made more than 60 acquisitions. Several factors came into play during this period.


“One is that many family-owned bakeries did not have the capital to modernize their operations, improve efficiencies or grow their businesses,” Mr. Alexander explained. “Another is that some owners had no viable succession plan, no one to take over the running of their companies.”


Additionally, he noted, consumer food preferences began changing more rapidly, and family-owned bakeries often didn’t have the money to invest in developing and launching new products. The retail food business also started consolidating at this time. As grocery chains expanded, bakers were forced to serve larger geographic areas, which was difficult for some with limited direct-store-delivery systems.


“For many family-owned bakeries looking to sell their businesses, Flowers Industries was the company of choice,” Mr. Alexander said. “While Flowers’ growth, culture and experienced management were attractive, the real draw was the company’s stock, which was performing very well. Many of the acquisitions at this time were either all or partial stock transactions.”


For some companies, long-term survival relies more on managing the family than operating the business.


“There is an expression that I heard a long time ago that the first generation starts the business, the second generation grows the business, and third generation either sells the business or blows it,” Kim Bickford said. “I’ve been here long enough. I guess we haven’t blown it.”


History is littered with dozens of reasons why family businesses fail, including family squabbles, sibling shareholders who want to cash out or heirs apparent searching for more exciting careers. Industry veteran Bill Zimmerman Sr. comes from a family of bakers where his father, part of the third generation, didn’t want to run the Colorado Springs, Colo., business.


Today, he noted, some companies face unfunded pension liabilities, which make it difficult, if not impossible, to sell. Inheritance taxes have ended bakery dynasties. Regional family bakeries have gotten squeezed by the demands that national, big box retailers put on their suppliers. And then once-in-a-lifetime events like the pandemic have forced bakeries to sell or to fold.


Perhaps the main issue involves the lack of skilled labor coupled with an aging workforce.


“From an operations perspective, we continue to kick the can down the street about educating our workforce to understand what manufacturing is about,” Mr. Zimmerman said. “We are in dire straits, in my opinion, about educating people and replenishing the vast amount of knowledge that we’re losing because people leave the industry. It’s not so much about the family but finding people who can support the company as it goes forward.”

(From left) Kent, Bill, Kim and Josh Bickford — along with the late Herman Seekamp pictured in the truck — represent four generations of family owners at Clyde’s Delicious Donuts.

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Making the transition

At Neri’s Bakery, third generation Dominick and Paul Neri made a commitment to hand over the family business in better condition than when they received it.

 

“I can’t tell you how many times my father has been asked, ‘Why do we work so hard?’ and his answer every time is, ‘I do it for my kids and my grandchildren and nephews,’ ” Ms. Neri-Ferraro noted. “That’s a big part of why we’re standing strong as opposed to other businesses in our industry.”


Ms. Neri-Ferraro recalled how she would wake up some mornings and her father and uncles still hadn’t returned home from the bakery.


“They were always at work,” she said. “They’ve groomed us and shown us what it’s like to experience failure, and that’s a big part of why we’re so successful.”

Clyde’s Delicious Donuts has relied on an optimistic attitude and a cautious approach to the business to survive over the years.

Today, Neri’s fourth generation takes an active role in the bakery’s operation.


“We’re all here every day,” Anthony Neri said.


That doesn’t mean the older third generation doesn’t have a say in the business.


“The key to our success is letting them think that they still are in control and that they’re still holding the torch. No, I’m just joking around,” Anthony Neri said.

“They’re very much involved here. We try to walk in the footsteps of our father and uncles. They’ve clearly been doing something right for this business to be successful after all these years.”


At Clyde’s, Kim Bickford and his brother, Kent, who is retired, learned the ropes from their father, Bill Bickford, and from on-the-job training. Josh Bickford, however, was recruited back into the bakery for his IT and administration expertise after attaining a finance degree from the University of Illinois. Over the years, he’s received informal training in other parts of the operation as well as in marketing and sales. That’s something his father appreciates.


“The next generation always brings a questioning attitude,” Kim Bickford said. “Is there a better way of doing something? They come in with fresh eyes and fresh ideas. So that’s a key to success when the next generation joins the business.”


Among the changes included a new image and rebranding that leverages the fun of donuts with the “smiles all around” campaign.


“We have this wonderful legacy business of donuts, but there is not a more fun product to be making than donuts,” Josh Bickford said. “We have an opportunity to take that to the next level and be industry experts.”


Kim Bickford pointed to another key to long-term success: bringing in outside managers to support the family business.


“In my career we have hired some very good team members and leaders,” he said. “We have been very blessed to have had good businesspeople contributing to our success in the last three decades or more.”


At Flowers Foods, Mr. Alexander said, turning the century mark serves as a reminder that the 100-year rule is meant to be broken.


“One thing 100 years in business will teach you is that the only constant is change,” he said. “Everything is evolving and today faster than ever. If you don’t adapt, you won’t be around for another 100.”


During the past five years or so, he added, Flowers has taken a deep dive into all areas of its business and even established a transformation office to manage the success of its key initiatives that will shape the future of the company.


“Our digital projects are particularly exciting,” Mr. Alexander said. “When implemented, they will bring us even closer to the consumer, increase our operational efficiency and deliver real-time insights that will allow us to make faster and smarter business decisions. The three initial digital areas or domains we’re working on are e-commerce, autonomous planning and what we’re calling ‘bakery of the future.’ Our team is at the heart of this work. We’re committed to its ongoing development and building capabilities as one of our strategic priorities.”


At Clyde’s, Josh Bickford sees the potential future in his seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old son and the excitement in their eyes knowing that their father is the “cool dad” who makes donuts. And besides, who knows what the fifth generation will bring to the bakery?
“I think there are still plenty of donuts to be made,” he said.


That’s how a business keeps it a family affair.

From left: Anthony Frank Neri, plant manager; Salvatore Neri Jr., manager of the sweet goods department; Brett Neri-Ferraro, HR, and Anthony M. Neri, GM, are part of the fourth generation of family members now managing the bakery.
Langdon S. Flowers encouraged employees to become stockholders in 1968, the year the family bakery went public.