Baking & Snack - May 2021 - 25

OPERATIONS
ANA & La Brea Bakery

By staying true to the artisan process
while streamlining its operations, ARYZTA
North America rises out of the COVID-19
pandemic more determined than ever.
by Charlotte Atchley

W

While wholesale bakeries supplying center-store bread
aisles saw a sales boom in 2020, those businesses that
serve mostly foodservice and in-store bakeries went
through a different experience. None was more public
than the challenging year ARYZTA endured. But while
the Zurich-based company underwent leadership changes and restructuring, subsidiary ARYZTA North America
(ANA) quietly pivoted its operations to better serve its
in-store bakery and foodservice customers. That ability
to quickly assess, adapt and innovate has ANA emerging
with a strategy for the future and new ownership on the
horizon. In March, it was announced that private equity
firm Lindsay Goldberg will be acquiring ANA. The deal is
set to close before the end of summer.
This story is most apparent in how the company's
La Brea Bakery brand weathered the coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic. La Brea Bakery supplies bread
to in-store bakeries as well as a range of foodservice customers, so a slump would be expected. And it did at the
beginning of the pandemic. But plans to expand its Take
& Bake line and renewed consumer interest in artisan
breads empowered the company to shift gears and innovate its way to future growth.

consumers' desire for artisan bread while still assuaging their food safety concerns. The par-baked products
come in a sealed package and can either be baked at home
within a few days or frozen for later, allowing consumers to enjoy them at their leisure without worrying about
shelf life. This insight was confirmed during a fortuitously
scheduled consumer focus group on March 11, 2020, that
gave ANA an early view into how COVID-19 was changing consumers' priorities when it came to bread.
" Our original objective was to optimize the Take &
Bake line of the business because we knew it had the
most opportunity, " Ms. Prociv said. " But when consumers came in, all of a sudden they were into hygiene, so
the focus group naturally encompassed the new perspective people had and what this meant for how this
product could fit into this new environment. "
Since then, the Take & Bake line has seen double-digit
growth, proving to ANA that it had been underleveraged and was hitting all of consumers' buttons. While
ANA already planned to grow the Take & Bake product
and invest in La Brea Bakery's operations to support that
initiative, the consumer response during the pandemic
made that project even more urgent.

Innovation at the right time

Investing in automation

To say the pandemic affected La Brea Bakery and ANA's
business would be an understatement.
" It was a big impact for two main reasons in the
grocery store, " said Chris Prociv, ANA's senior vice
president of marketing, innovation and research and
development. " La Brea Bakery is in the in-store bakery where bakers bake up our product, and that labor
was constrained, so our breads weren't being baked as
consistently as they were in the past. And secondly, our
package is an open bag, which was a real problem in the
early days of the pandemic. "
While ANA offered in-store bakery customers best
practices for wrapping La Brea Bakery's open-bagged
product, the Take & Bake line provided a way to meet

La Brea Bakery started out as an artisan bakery and remains committed to its mother starter and the long fermentation times its breads require for optimal quality.
This commitment, however, hasn't stopped the company
from automating where appropriate. During the past
four years, capital spending has been driven by a need
to keep up with growth, streamline efficiencies and improve employee safety. However, that has never come at
the cost of La Brea Bakery's artisan heart.
" Baking is an art and a science; it's not one or the
other, " said Marcus Garcia, bakery director for La Brea
Bakery's facility in Van Nuys, Calif., where it recently
installed a new automated packaging line. " If you have
one more than the other, you will struggle, and some-

Automation at La
Brea Bakery's Van
Nuys, Calif., facility
has enabled La Brea
Bakery to increase
capacity and expand
its product portfolio.
Photos by Kevin Montjoy

www.bakingbusiness.com / May 2021 Baking & Snack 25


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Baking & Snack - May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - May 2021

Baking & Snack - May 2021 - Intro
Baking & Snack - May 2021 - 1
Baking & Snack - May 2021 - 2
Baking & Snack - May 2021 - 3
Baking & Snack - May 2021 - 4
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https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-march-2024
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https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-september-2023
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https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-november-2021
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https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-september-2021
https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-august-2021
https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-july-2021
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https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-april-2021
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https://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/baking-snack-february-2021
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2020_12_01
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http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2020_06_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2020_05_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2020_04_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2020_03_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2020_02_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_12_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_11_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_10_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_09_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_08_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_07_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_06_01
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http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2019_04_01
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http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2018_12_01
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http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2018_04_01
http://digitalbs.bakingbusiness.com/sosland/bs/2018_03_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2018_02_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2017_12_01
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https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_12_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_11_01
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https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_09_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_08_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_07_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_06_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_05_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_04_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2016_03_01
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https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2015_12_01
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https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2015_07_01
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https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2015_05_02
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2015_04_01
https://www.nxtbook.com/sosland/bs/2015_03_01
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