Supermarket Perimeter - October 2020 - 20

Bakery: Ready-to-sell donuts

A century of service
Still family owned and operated, Clyde's Donuts continues the tradition
of freshness and service, crafting nearly 6 million donuts each week
in its 104,000-square-foot bakery in Addison, Ill. The company is
celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
Josh Bickford, executive vice president, strategic initiatives for
Clyde's, explains that trends have definitely shifted back to the triedand-true favorites, such as glazed rings, apple fritters, and old fashioned
donuts. Consumers tend to be looking for familiar favorites during their
less frequent, but more substantial trips to the grocery store, he says.
"Clyde's has always been well-positioned to supply our customers
with the exact packaging formats to meet their needs," Bickford says.
"In the case of the recent market, we were available for turnkey, fullyfinished basics like glazed rings, but also added some interest to the
product mix with specialty items like our pumpkin spice fritters."
As for the impact of COVID-19 on the types of donuts that shoppers
purchase at the supermarket, he explains that demand has definitely
varied by region, based specifically on how receptive particular chains
have been to returning to "opening back up."
While there is definitely increased demand for sealed, food-safe graband-go formats, Bickford says, some customers have continued their
fresh bakery programs - moving self-service items behind the counter,
or pre-bagging individual items before sale.
"While the individual, self-serve case has definitely seen some
challenges in the past few months, donuts are still strong!" he shares. "A
delicious donut is a wonderful comfort food, and for 100 years Clyde's
has always been proud to bring a smile to our customer's face."
20 - OCTOBER 2020

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Clyde's features a diverse selection of how-to videos that can
help instore bakeries craft creative finished projects with ease. For
example, a video on s'mores donuts demonstrates how to easily create
delicious decorated donuts using graham cracker crumbles and mini
marshmallows. For extra pizzazz, drizzle with chocolate icing.

New routines
There are several major factors that are influencing consumer
purchasing decisions in fresh bakery and other fresh foods, explains
Jonna Parker, principal, Fresh Center of Excellence for IRI.
"We have more and different mouths to feed at home than ever
before," she said. New needs and behaviors are surfacing, in light of
strong economic uncertainty. "We still have a 10% unemployment rate
nationally."
Something interesting is happening, though. People are more deeply
engaged with food than ever. New routines have brought new buyers,
"and that's explicitly impacted fresh," Parker said.
Still, Americans are suffering serious "meal fatigue." Many want the
decisions about what they are going to eat throughout the day made
for them.
Prior to the pandemic, 70% of Americans rarely or never worked from
home. Now, one-third of America's shopping population works from
home five or more days per week.
"That absolutely changes what you eat for breakfast, lunch and
dinner," Parker said.

Individually wrapped
The coronavirus has dramatically changed the ways consumers select
and receive different foods. As a direct result, individually wrapped
baked goods have become extremely desirable and necessary to satisfy
consumer demand for safe, yet delicious, bakery products.
Muffin Town specializes in baking, individually wrapping, and
freezing a dynamic variety of baked goods. Across the United States,
and internationally, Muffin Town individually wrapped baked goods now
fill the need for bakery items with high product integrity and reliability.
Items such as donuts, honey buns, and more are making great
selections at schools, hotels, hospitals, restaurants, catering venues,
athletic facilities, casinos, and all retail formats. Wide selections of
product sizes and flavor choices are making it easy to fill menu and
product requirements for food providers of every description.

DAWN

"We have learned customers merchandise these in a variety of ways,
but they're primarily sold as singles inside bakery cases or by the halfdozen inside of the provided trays," Monke said.
"Our customers are still demanding new and innovative ideas," he
said. "While we are going through a strange period of time where some
consumers want normalcy and others demand items be free from
any human contact, we are doing our best to offer both options to our
customers. The key to getting consumers back over to the donut case
and into donut shops is by offering them something they can't get
anywhere else. That's why Baker Boy's technical experts and our research
and development teams will continue to develop more flavors of Magic
Ring Donuts and inventive ways to decorate and merchandise donuts."

supermarketperimeter.com

9/25/2020 9:14:11 AM

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Supermarket Perimeter - October 2020

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