Articles by Douglas J. Peckenpaugh

Over the last 30-plus years since establishing Lehi Valley, the family has significantly expanded the different types of snacks offered, primarily working with retailers across the U.S. on their private label lines of caramel corn and popcorn, puffed corn snacks, snack mixes, nuts, granola, and more. Freeman and his wife, Trecia, purchased the business outright in 2000, and have steadily expanded the company’s manufacturing footprint ever since.

Two areas of frozen bakery products that have seen strong traction over the past year are frozen breakfast items like waffles and frozen pizza, with trends like clean label, premium offerings and health-conscious considerations factoring into growth.

In 2015, we launched the "Best New Snack & Bakery Products" of the year contest to honor outstanding new snack and bakery products entering the industry, with the online Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery audience voting for their favorites. Since then, we've noticed that the winners often reflect that year's current prevailing consumer sensibilities.

When "The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book" was first published in 1954, it included a recipe for "Haschich Fudge," made with black pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, dates, figs, almonds, peanuts, sugar, butter and "a bunch of canibus sativa (sic)."

Bread is the most-important category in the baking industry, but also one of the most-challenging for building appreciable growth. For the 52 weeks ending November 4, 2018, the fresh bread and rolls category grew 0.13 percent in dollar sales to $13.4 billion, per IRI, Chicago.