Baking & Snack - April 2016 - 12

What do you love?

When it comes to the baking industry, life is certainly sweet
these days. That's the message that Sally Lyons Wyatt, executive vice-president at Information Resources Inc. (IRI),
hammered home recently at the American Society of
Baking's BakingTech 2016 conference.
Yes, sweet, not savory, is driving bakery's growth. On
a compound annual growth rate over the past five years,
the top-growing baked goods category included muffins
(5.7%), pies (5.6%), cupcakes (7.2%), cakes (6.2%), donuts
(4.8%), pastry/Danish/coffeecake (4.5%) and frozen cookie
dough (29.7%), according to IRI data.
In year-ago comparisons, some of the numbers are even
greater, with frozen cookie dough, muffins and pies growing at double-digit rates, and cupcakes, cakes, donuts
and pastry/Danish/coffee cakes rising 5% or more.
In a nation that's constantly concerned about
health and wellness, who in the heck is eating
all this stuff?
IRI's presentation provided an exclamation point about the consumption of sweet
goods, building on the conference's keynote
speech by William Toler, Hostess Brands
president and CEO. He emphatically presented his case that America's love for indulgence remains as passionate as ever.
Following the November 2012 companywide
shutdown of the old Hostess Brands - which Mr.
Toler referred to as the "old co" - he noted the sweet
goods category dipped 6.1%, but most recently, it's up 4.3%.

EDITORIAL
Editorial Director
Dan Malovany
Executive Editor
Laurie Gorton
Editor/Managing Editor
Joanie Spencer
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Charlotte Atchley
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Joe Stout
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"And there's a lot of runway in front of us," he stressed.
Snacking shows trends almost twice the growth opportunity of other packaged goods, Mr. Toler said.
"And this is a category described by my two favorite
words, 'expandable consumption.' People make six to eight
snack choices a day," he observed.
For decades, I've been preaching about how consumers
definitely have a split personality. It's not a simplistic goodbad thing. It's more of a Pavlovian mindset where a simple
reward - or indulgence - can actually reinforce a broader,
longer-term commitment to an overall healthy lifestyle.
Earlier this year, this concept was actually brought to life
when Oprah Winfrey declared, "I love bread!" and clarified
that everyone can eat bread - yes, every day. As demonstrated during BakingTech, BEMA's Winter Summit and the
American Bakers Association annual convention, the baking industry needs to keep this message front-and-center
in consumers' minds through social media and any other
means possible. And it's off to a good start.
Already, the Grain Foods Foundation and BEMA have
committed $125,000 to a dedicated content series that will
use Oprah's "I love bread" declaration as a rallying cry for
the grain-based foods industry.
Now imagine the headlines if only Oprah would say, "I
love pie" or "I love cake." That would be even better.
But then again, if you look at the IRI data, it's pretty obvious that America already does.
- Dan Malovany, editorial director
dmalovany@sosland.com

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Baking & Snack - April 2016

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