Baking & Snack - February 2022 - 8

editorial
Remember when bread was struggling?
W
When we launched Baking & Snack's podcast, Since Sliced
Bread, in January 2020, our first season addressed lagging
bread sales that had plagued the baking industry
for decades. We had some excellent guests from Daniel
Servitje of Grupo Bimbo to Julie Martin of Martin's
Famous Pastry Shoppe, Jon Davis of La Brea Bakery,
Chad Donvito of King's Hawaiian ... the list goes on. I'm
proud of the conversations we presented that first season,
but the topic - declining bread sales - seems almost like
a distant and fading memory.
That season ended just a few weeks before the coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic shut down the world and
sent consumers scrambling for loaf after loaf of sliced
bread. The baking industry held its breath, thankful for
the renewed love but wondering how long it would
last with keto lurking in the shadows. The good
news is that two years later, consumers seem to
have discovered that bread and other baked
goods have a place on their plates. With every
quarterly BEMA Intel report, IRI data shows
that commercial sales in multiple baked good
categories hold strong. Sure, there's been some
tempering as children have returned to schools
and restaurant restrictions have lifted, but sales
remain robust.
However, the baking industry is experiencing difficulties
exacerbated by the pandemic related to labor and
supply chain shortages, which have bakers accelerating
investments in automation to keep up with consumer demand.
That's what you'll find in our 2021-22 Commercial
Baking Industry Capital Spending Study, sponsored by
BEMA and reported in these pages. Bakers are increasing
capacity to meet demand for existing products rather
than new ones and automating wherever they can to
make operations as efficient and hands-off as possible.
This fixation on maximizing production, sometimes at
the expense of innovation, is also reflected in Executive
Editor Dan Malovany's article on bun and roll technology,
" Change of Pace. " Rather than streamlining changeovers
to accommodate new product varieties, bakers are looking
for how to get the most out of a long production run
to keep up with customer orders.
Our ninth season of Since Sliced Bread debuts this
month, and we're tackling the supply chain issue everyone
is wrestling with. In these episodes, you'll find conversations
with analysts about when all this is going to be
over and what the future looks like. I also spoke to experts
about strategies you might find useful as you encounter
sudden ingredient shortages and long equipment lead
times. I hope it helps you navigate this challenging environment.
And I hope when we start producing 2023's first
podcast season, we'll be through this mess, and the problems
we address in this season of Since Sliced Bread won't
seem so relevant anymore.
- Charlotte Atchley, Editor
catchley@sosland.com
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EDITORIAL
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Baking & Snack - February 2022

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