Baking & Snack - March 2022 - 8

editorial
Adapt or face the consequences
P
Pivotal. This is the word I most often hear tossed around
regarding the current moment for the wholesale baking
industry. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has
served as a pressure cooker and accelerated many trends
and accentuated several challenges, whether they're consumer
trends, changes in the workforce and supply chain,
or the adoption of technology.
I had the honor of interviewing the inductees to the
American Society of Baking's (ASB) Baking Hall of Fame
and their family members and share their wisdom with
you in video interviews available on bakingbusiness.com.
Each of them, with their decades of experience, spoke to
the widely held sense that the baking industry is at a pivotal
time that will require bakers to think outside the box
when it comes to investment and workforce. As one supplier
in my story on dough conditioners bluntly said:
" Bakers have to adapt or die. "
In our " Automating Out of the Labor
Challenges " study, analyzed in a webinar of the
same name on bakingbusiness.com, we found
that small to mid-sized wholesale baking companies
are interested in technology that until
now they have been slow to adopt: robotics,
automated guided vehicles and more automation
for those processes in the bakery that no
one wants to do. The pressure of labor shortages
and the uncertainty in supply chain have bakers
streamlining their operations and squeezing every bit
of efficiency out of the production line, the one thing they
can control.
" This is a time when the industry needs to invest in
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EDITORIAL
Charlotte Atchley
Dan Malovany
Keith Moore
Michelle Smith
Lucas Cuni-Mertz
Taryn Parker
Donna Berry
Beth Day
Laurie Gorton
automation, not as much about high-speed automation,
but it's about durability, sustainability and flexibility and
equipment that will allow us to function and produce
with less people on the production lines, " said Yianny
Caparos, president of Crown Bakeries, Nashville, Tenn.,
and 2022 Baking Hall of Fame inductee.
This pivotal time isn't just about baking companies
making the leap to automation but also rethinking
their approach to workforce. Tim Brown, chairman of
New Horizons Baking Co., Norwalk, Ohio, and 2022
Hall of Fame inductee, urged bakers to relinquish the
old ways of thinking and evolve to meet the needs of
today.
" There has to be some transitional thinking that says
this is not 1966; this is not the way it was when I started, "
he said. " This is the 2020s, and we have to think like it and
act like it. "
To Mr. Brown, it's all about showing employees you
care about them, their families and their quality of life.
And that comes from a company's leaders.
" Actions really speak louder than words. I don't care
what we say; it's what we do that counts with the people
working for us, " he said. " We have to have quality leadership.
That will not change. "
Those leaders who are willing to adapt and evolve -
through investing in new technology or creating a more
appealing workplace environment - are the ones who
will be able to carry their companies successfully into the
new baking industry when the dust settles.
- Charlotte Atchley, Editor
catchley@sosland.com
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Baking & Snack - March 2022

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