Baking & Snack - February 2016 - 122

the
tradition

CONTINUES

B&CMA sharpens its focus at the 91st Annual Technical Conference.
by Joanie Spencer

For more than a century, the Biscuit & Cracker
Manufacturers' Association (B&CMA) has upheld
its mission of education, training and networking
for the cookie and cracker industry. In the spirit of
maintaining that standard, the association announced
enhancements to its Technical Conference, to be held
May 1-4 at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead in Atlanta.
Since taking his seat as association president in
2014, David Van Laar, a former baker himself, has
worked to refine the conference program to bring a
more heavily technical focus. "This is a technical conference, and that's exactly what we want to give attendees," Mr. Van Laar said. "In the past, we've dealt
with non-baking issues such as management and human resources, but this year, we're narrowing the focus to more production- and R&D-related issues."
One specific change will come in the form of a new
hands-on workshop, set to take place on May 4, in lieu
of the plant tour that has traditionally been offered on
the conference's last day.
This four-hour workshop, which will be led by
three B&CMA technical advisors, will take a page
from B&CMA's Cookie & Cracker Manufacturing
Course (CCMC), giving participants an opportunity
to troubleshoot formulation variances. Groups in the
workshop will each bake a batch of cookies from a
base formula, plus at least one batch with a specific
variance in either flour, sugar, shortening or water.
Each group will then present and evaluate the results.
In addition to the hands-on participants, conference
attendees may register to observe the workshop, which
will take place offsite at the Cook's Warehouse, a local
culinary school, where a seated gallery will accommo-

122 Baking & Snack February 2016 / www.bakingandsnack.com

date spectators. "People won't be just doing their work
and then walking away," Mr. Van Laar said. "There's going to be a show the entire time, so we encourage managers and supervisors to come in and watch how extensive the B&CMA courses are and how much we teach."
The purpose of the workshop is to help bakers recognize product variances out of the oven to troubleshoot
them right away. "In a production environment, we're
probably into the third or fourth batch before we see
product come out of the oven," Mr. Van Laar said. "By
the time we know there's a problem, one batch is laying on the floor, one is in the hopper, and one is going through the oven - that's anywhere from 20 to 40
minutes of production time." The faster an employee
can identify and fix a problem, the less downtime and
loss of ingredient usage the bakery will face.
Students currently enrolled in the CCMC correspondence course will receive work project credit
upon completing the workshop. However, CCMC enrollment is not required to participate, and those who
choose to enroll in the correspondence course later
will retroactively receive credit for the project.
In addition, the session is designed to benefit not
only bakers but also equipment and ingredient suppliers. "I think it's just as important, if not more important, for allieds to attend," Mr. Van Laar suggested.
"It's an opportunity for a salesperson to take a crash
course in baking." In other words, it gives a salesperson an added layer of understanding and troubleshooting beyond his or her specific products. "It will
help sales reps help bakers to understand problems
in both ingredient functionality and the operation of
equipment," he said.

http://www.bakingandsnack.com

Baking & Snack - February 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - February 2016