The bakery market is rife with change this year, as bakers face plenty of challenges that just keep coming. With a hailstorm of food-safety issues, for example, most bakers are beginning the certification process through the Safe Quality Food (SQF) program and others.
International flavors and foods are gaining popularity, but cautious consumers remain a challenge for bakers and snack producers. Successful manufacturers encourage purchase at the production line and at retail.
New closing equipment for bags, cases and other packaging helps bakers and snack manufacturers ensure that products are intact, fresh and safe when consumers buy them. It also offers dependable, high-speed performance and accommodates today’s most popular closures.
New and redesigned dividers, rounders and depositors are helping bakers do more than just process dough. They’re enabling them to improve their weight accuracy, productivity, sanitation, flexibility and more.
Exotic superfruits aren’t the only fruits in town loaded with health benefits, consumers are discovering. Many perennial favorites like cherries, blueberries and raspberries are packed with vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients.
Everyday products, from popcorn to chips to dessert, are seeing an ethnic infusion as manufacturers strive to satisfy consumer demand for new and interesting offerings.
Enjoy Life Foods’ cookies, snack bars, chips, cereals, granolas and trail mixes are made in an allergen-free, gluten-free facility, and the company’s 40,050-sq.-ft. production plant is bulging at the seams to accommodate growing demand for its products. Enjoy Life is expanding at such a rapid pace, it may need to add a facility or relocate to a larger one.
It’s Celiac Awareness month, so we explore Enjoy Life Foods, the first bakery to gain gluten-free certification from the Gluten-Free Certification Organization (GFCO). In business 12 years, Enjoy Life’s mission is to make great-tasting, allergy-free, gluten-free cookies, bars and grab-and-go foods that nearly everyone can ‘eat freely’ without worry.
Ballreich Bros.’ 75,000-sq.-ft. potato chip and snack plant churns out 2,000-5,000 lb. of product an hour. Manufacturing product on a just-in-time basis, the family owned and operated company in Tiffin, Ohio, also produces new Sweet Potato Chips and shoestring Potato Sticks in three flavors.