Bakeries and snack makers in the market for ovens, proofers, fryers, and dryers have a healthy list of features and benefits in mind. These include capabilities for customization and flexibility, reliability and consistency, temperature control, faster processing times and continuous production, and automation that operators can control and monitor remotely.

Snack and bakery facilities have a daily need for thoroughly cleaning pans, trays, containers, utensils, equipment, parts, and more, especially anything that comes into contact with the finished product or human hands, in order to meet the needs of food safety programs, including mitigating contamination from allergens or pathogens.

Snack food and bakery companies in the market for mixers want machines that provide qualities like ease of sanitation, food safety, automation, airtight seals, and consistent operation that guards against product degradation during the mixing cycle.

The popcorn category has enjoyed a very strong past year, with a particularly strong jump early in the year after the COVID-19 pandemic hit U.S. shores.

The buns and rolls category has enjoyed a prosperous past 12 months, sparked in particular by the popularity of products like Hawaiian rolls.

Snack and bakery customers in the market for dough-handling equipment like dividers, depositors, and rounders are looking for versatility, greater precision, higher capacity, longer maintenance intervals, adjustability of qualities like width and weight, and machines that can handle natural, clean-label, and gluten-free products.

Flexibility, greater sanitation, gentle handling of ingredients, quicker changeovers, more precise weight control, and the ability to make products with healthier ingredients are top of mind features and benefits for snack and bakery customers of extrusion equipment and technology.

Companies that make pans for the baking industry, whether for breads, baguettes, muffins, cookies, cakes, pies, etc., are focused on issues like larger sizes, a desire for energy and material efficiency, stick resistance, and the ability to help produce specialty and artisanal products.

Customers of ingredient handling equipment are focused on a wide mix of factors to come up with their optimal formulation. These include accuracy, traceability, food safety, automation, cleanability, efficiency, flexibility, batch quality and fire safety, manufacturers say.

Snack and bakery industry customers want belts and conveyors that are fast and easy to clean, maximize energy efficiency, offer strength and durability, require as few tools as possible, and provide flexibility to either switch out products and/or run multiple products at once.