Featured Stories

RSS

Ingredient handling equipment, such as batchers, hoppers, pneumatic conveyors, sifters, sorters and storage silos, helps snack and bakery operations store, refine, prepare, measure and transport ingredients, streamlining production.

When it comes to product handling equipment, snack producers and bakeries are looking for flexible machines that can run a variety of products and offer quick or completely automatic changeovers.

In 2015, we launched the "Best New Snack & Bakery Products" contest to honor outstanding new snack and bakery products. After voting for the 2017 contest concluded in mid-December, TERRA Plantain chips and PowerBar Plant Protein bars emerged as clear victors.

According to Maru/Matchbox, Toronto, sustainable products that were once considered premium are being pushed into the mainstream as consumers become more invested in the environmental and humanitarian implications of their food choices.

Today's snack and bakery companies need belts and conveyors that provide reliability to keep production steady, versatility to handle different types of products, sanitary design that allows easy access for efficient cleaning and maintenance, and the ability to detach and reattach them with as few tools as possible to account for issues like allergy concerns.

Greater product variety and increasing consumer attention to quality are among key factors driving snack producers and bakeries to update their inspection and detection equipment with models that, among other features, detect ever-smaller foreign objects and reduce false rejects.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software helps producers improve efficiency and day-to-day operations. New software can help snack and bakery companies increase their financial success, and there are a variety of ERP technologies from which to choose.

Fresh bread, bagels and English muffins comprise the largest segment in bakery, valued at over $10 billion per IRI, Chicago. But sales overall remain relatively flat. Nevertheless, several strategic options exist for bakers to infuse new life into bread sales.

The U.S. retail snack industry is currently valued at nearly $40 billion, accounting for sales of salty snacks like chips, popcorn, pretzels, puffed/extruded snacks and tortilla chips, as well as crackers, frozen grain-based snacks and appetizers like pizza rolls, and snack mixes and nuts.

Food allergies continue to manifest in children and adults at unprecedented levels without any end in sight.