baking+biscuit international 2021 issue 01

www.bakingbiscuit.com

In-store ovens

Sustainability

Raw materials

Pandemic impact and technology advances

Single-serve packaging

Practice makes gluten-free perfect

01 21

THE SWEET TASTE OF SUCCESS C O O K I E P E R F E C T I O N B A K E D I N T O E V E RY B AT C H When it comes to producing consistently great cookies, innovation is the key ingredient. Our GenesisPRO Series offers the most advanced, efficient and reliable equipment on the market. For cookies, biscuits, bars and filled products, RBS has the technology and experience you need to bake your best products each and every day. Call (01) 610-693-5816 or visit readingbakery.com for more information.

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EDITORIAL

Everything Changes Last year, Mondelēz confirmed its global strategy to ‘reduce the number of SKUs and make the business simpler’ because impulse purchases, a main driver of biscuit sales, work differently online than in physical stores. It was the year when everything changed, from the way business is done, production is managed, and supply chains work. Secluded consumers have abruptly given up on a previously reliable trend: on-the-go snacking and most on-thego daily activities, for that matter, came to standstill. Convenience was redefined to suit homebound restraints, and new opportunities emerged (you can read what this has meant for the biscuit and savory snack markets in the pages of this issue).

Media to the global baking industry Food2Multimedia is a publishing house operating at an international level and specializing in researching and editing technical information for the baking sector.

++ Catalina Mihu, Editor-in-chief Your commments or suggestions are always appreciated: e-mail: mihu@foodmultimedia.de www.bakingbiscuit.com

This year, we are seeking to reconnect, either in new formats, from new home workspaces, or via new sales channels and business models altogether. On that note, I would also like to introduce myself as I have just joined the wonderful team at Baking and Biscuit International. We are all excited about bringing you our first issue of the magazine together; we strive to make it the best and easiest way to connect with you personally and through meaningful, relevant and in-depth industry coverage. We are looking forward to soon being able to meet safely and in person again, in each of our teams, and with you; but, until then and going forward, our place to directly connect will always be in the pages of the magazine.

Publishing house · baking + biscuit international · brot + backwaren (German) · brot + backwaren (Russian)

And, more than ever, we are rediscovering this year the value of personal interaction.

We are all looking forward to the moment when we will meet again. Until then, we hope you stay healthy. f2m food multimedia GmbH Ehrenbergstrasse 33 22767 Hamburg Germany

See you soon, everyone!

Catalina Mihu

Mixer technology

Raw materials

Changes in the pizza market

Factors that make a difference

Ingredient with character

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THE EUROPEAN BAKERY MARKET

Dictionary of bakery terms

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f2m food multimedia

As we endeavor to gain a cautious footing into life after the pandemic, we’re both redefining and setting the building blocks of what novelty, innovation, and inspiration will mean from this year. It unmistakably will not only drive innovation, but it will accelerate it. The chance and the challenge to change for the better is now. We’re already witnessing positive change in the bakery industry; it has adapted to revisions in demand and continues to provide wary consumers with not only core products, but also it has been a source of comfort offering the much-needed moment of health-conscious indulgence, without missing a beat.

Volumes have increased, and bread has returned to dominate bakery markets with a consumer shift toward staple products. Manufacturing portfolios may look different to last year, but innovation is very much at home in R&D labs and better-for-you products with specific claims on the rise.

Production

Dictionary of bakery terms English

ENG

German

DEU

French

FRA

Glosario de términos sobre tecnologías de panificación

Spanish

SPA

Термины хлебопекарной индустрии

Russian

RUS

Ordbog over bageriudtryk

Danish

DAN

Japanese

JPN

Dictionary of bakery terms

Wörterbuch der Bäckereitechnik Dictionnaire des termes techniques pour la boulangerie

baking+biscuit international Our specialist journal concentrating on production professionals in large companies in the industrial and chain-store sectors.

Published six times a year in the English language.

Our Review series provides in-depth analysis of clearly defined issues. This involves market analyses and is a comprehensive, informative presentation of the state of the art in process engineering.

The f2m dictionary translates bakery terms into a mulitude of different languages.

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CONTENT

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EDITOR EMERITUS Hildegard M. Keil hildegard_keil@t-online.de © Brabender

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06 Johan Sanders, Fedima president: Sourdough in four key messages

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Catalina Mihu mihu@foodmultimedia.de

COPY EDITOR Annie Dixon annie.dixon@foodmultimedia.de

In-store ovens 10 Oven manufacturers: Pandemic impact, technology advances

SUBSCRIPTIONS Viktoria Usanova usanova@foodmultimedia.de

Production 18 Reading Bakery Systems: A balanced bake with the Emithermic oven

DISTRIBUTION vertrieb@foodmultimedia.de

22 MECATHERM: Ultrapharm bakes gluten-free with the M-TA oven

ADVERTISING info@foodmultimedia.de

Sustainability

SOCIAL MEDIA Annie Dixon annie.dixon@foodmultimedia.de

26 Syntegon: Single-serve packaging for sustainability Raw materials

LAYOUT/GRAPHIC DESIGN LANDMAGD Design aus der Heide Linda Langhagen, design@landmagd.de

34 Gluten-free ingredients: Perfecting formulations Research

PRINT Leinebergland Druck GmbH & Co. KG Industriestr. 2a, 31061 Alfeld (Leine), Germany

38 TU Munich: Process design using forced dough relaxation Market

IT IT Consulting BRUNK Felix Brunk, felix@brunk-net.de

30 Euromonitor: Health is on the menu 40 Commercial Baking: Artisan baking trends

BAKING+BISCUIT INTERNATIONAL is published six times a year.

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Interview

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INTERVIEW

Sourdough in four key messages Fedima, the Federation of European Manufacturers and Suppliers of Ingredients to the Bakery, Confectionary and Patisserie Industries, has been conducting a campaign to promote and increase sourdough awareness among industry members and consumers. Fedima’s president, Johan Sanders, reveals the concept, execution, and impact of the campaign based on an in-house consumer study.

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Mihu: Why are these kinds of activities imis hardly known. In the Netherlands, where I live, portant in today’s environment? Why sourdough is a little-known topic. With this are such messages necessary dialogues in minimal awareness comes a similarly limited the industry? frequency of consumption. However, in Johan Sanders: One of Fedima’s objecother countries including Germany, Italy, tives is to create a European playing field, or Spain, sourdough is almost mainstream. which is especially important now because There is also a lack of understanding and the playing field is changing from a panawareness regarding sourdough, according European perspective to the trend of going to the research we did in nine countries, back to a local kind of thinking – and Brexit where over 5,000 people were surveyed. We ed im er is just one example of this trend. On the one found that 58% of European consumers do not a’s nd a S pre sident, Joh an hand, going local is associated with familiarity fully understand what sourdough is. This is where and can have positive connotations; but, on the other Fedima can step in and try to educate people about hand, there can be side effects. Confusion is one of them, sourdough. regarding countries where a product is allowed while Mihu: What is the timeline of Fedima’s research? elsewhere it might not be, for example, and the subjective Sanders: The research was carried out in 2019, following a arguments surrounding them, which create confusion among workshop held in Milan, where we discussed with our memconsumers. bers what we could learn from this project. At that General Mihu: Sourdough itself is part of a trend of going back – in Assembly, we also concluded that there was an opportunity time. to talk about sourdough. We decided to start the campaign Sanders: Sourdough is going back and going forward. The in October 2020, to ensure it would be visible and ran it for trigger for the market research on which this campaign is about three months. It recently finished, and we plan a soft built was a need to better understand the market ourselves repeat later on. and learn from that. One of our observations from Fedima’s Mihu: What is the intended audience for the campaign? own market research was that, in some countries, sourdough Sanders: The target is anyone who works with sourdough in general. This is why we chose LinkedIn as the platform to run this campaign: to meet the experts, because they each have their professional network in this space, and to meet consumers who are linked to profiles and pages where the campaign is visible. Ideally, we would like to eventually reach consumers but, we should first educate opinion leaders.

Mihu: The campaign ran for three months. What did it entail, from concepts to execution?

Sanders: Our marketing and communication committee used the research Fedima developed to brief an external agency.

Four videos and nine visuals were made, and all the messages were checked by our technical committee to ensure the messages relayed are accurate and unbiased, aside from being attractive. The workshop in Milan helped us gain an embedded understanding of what key concepts resulted from our research, to really bring forward objective messages of the focus areas. We will follow this sequence in the future: external research, objective information, internal discussion, extract key learnings, which will then be taken by the marketing committee to an agency to translate them into messages that are easy to understand and remember. s

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INTERVIEW

Mihu: What points did you aim to get across with the campaign and on what conversation level?

Sanders: We promoted the topic on multiple levels; in some areas, we focused on the taste and nutrition aspects, while in others, we led with sourdough’s heritage and how it’s made.

© Fedim a

The next stage will be in March and April, while at the same time we are considering what categories would be a good fit for new research. We will reinforce our messages because we’ve learned they have been well received and we are aiming to expand our reach outside of our immediate communication ‘bubble’.

Mihu: How could such a campaign be brought into a physical meetings field, trade fairs included?

Sanders: This is an extremely interesting question, because associations are often underrepresented in tradeshows or conferences, with companies typically occupying this field.

It’s an interesting opportunity for associations, especially when coming in with independent knowledge.

Mihu: What is the role of sourdough powerhouses and what inspiration can traditional sourdough makers and corresponding regions provide?

Sanders: In places with a strong background, we aim to deepen the knowledge and we can be very factual. We plan to train our national associations to raise awareness accordingly, to translate materials and go a bit more in-depth with the information in countries like Italy, for example. This is one of the next phases we are thinking about, because the level of knowledge and the interest are so varied. While in the Netherlands, we would aim to educate; the conversation in Italy will be more technical and will delve into the benefits.

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INTERVIEW

LinkedIn was the main channel and the starting point for the campaign, as well as associations carrying on the conversation locally and beyond the networking platform.

Mihu: What feedback have you received?

Sanders: It was interesting to receive feedback on many levels; internally, we saw members of Fedima appreciating the association advocating and educating customers and consumers on this topic. We also saw positive reactions to the simple information format we provided – I think people are receptive to information that is easy to assimilate and that comes from a reliable source and is backed by consumer research. It shows there is a need for associations to objectively educate people, and we saw this from the overwhelmingly positive reaction, even more so in COVID times.

Mihu: How have consumer trends been evolving during this time, with the impact of COVID-19?

Sanders: Talking with industry leaders about managing the pandemic situation, we observed in our workshops that people tend to go back to the food they understand and they appreciate, so the more niche products and variations are to some extent left behind. This is why bread is back in the spotlight, and it explains why home baking was popular among lockdown activities. It has to do with going back to tradition, simple flavors that consumers are fond of. Bakers adjusted their portfolios to include fewer variations and more of the traditional, core products – and sourdough matches this description as well. Besides, the taste element plays an important part, and sourdough has a notoriously unique taste which is associated with better-for-you indulgence, especially sought after at present; the historical, traditional element is also a draw. Even if our research had taken place before COVID, sourdough ticks all the boxes in what consumers are seeking now.

Mihu: What will be the drivers for growth in sourdough going forward?

Sanders: It will be different for each country, between the three dimensions (heritage, taste and nutrition). In the

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Netherlands, where there is less heritage and knowledge, taste could be the prevalent message; Italy has more tradition with sourdough, while in Germany, it’s a mixture of all three aspects, with a drive towards health aspects.

Mihu: What about product variety? Bread is the staple product, but what opportunities are there for other product segments?

Sanders: I see more and more people using sourdough as a base for different kinds of products. We see it going beyond bread into other categories, with the trend for sourdough, healthier and more nutritious food supporting such development. At Dawn Foods, we’ve been focusing on sourdough donuts, for example, because it is such a unique taste experience. Everything from sweet pastry to savory or hybrid products can be a support for growth in sourdough. Mixing and matching will continue and, if sourdough is positioned as a healthy, heritage ingredient, it will go into every confectionery area where it’s suitable.

Mihu: What role could different strains and flavors of sourdough play?

Sanders: Having so many different starting strains is in itself a conversation starter, because people will remember a flavor they particularly like and want to trade strains. It’s similar to wine making in a sense. The richness in variations is an opportunity, especially as there are no negative connotations associated with sourdough, but only positives.

Mihu: What plans regarding sourdough will Fedima develop after 2021?

Sanders: It’s a good question, that is one of the debates we are having at Fedima now – how many campaigns we should do, and how often they should be repeated. It’s possible we will research sourdough again in the future and reinvigorate the campaign. +++

© Fedim a

© Fedim a

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IN-STORE OVENS

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Part 1

Networked and increasingly smarter baking+biscuit international asked manufacturer of in-store ovens how the pandemic is affecting

© MIWE

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their sales and what direction the technology is taking.

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It is impossible to imagine bakery stores without in-store ovens. Without them, there would be no baking stations in food retail, and in general the foodservice industry with its wide variations needs these helpers. For manufacturers, this is a comfortable situation – individual market segments may weaken, but rarely all of them.

This is also shown by the survey of oven manufacturers conducted by the editors of baking+biscuit international.

The impact of the pandemic on their sales figures depends on how strongly their business is shaped by bakers with and without catering, the retail trade or the various foodservice segments. The first lockdown initially gave everyone a shock in the spring, but once it became clear which stores would be allowed to open and what product lines could be sold, a willingness to invest returned for some customers. Because the pandemic made some people from outside the industry

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think about their future, one or two stove manufacturers also registered ‘career changer’ as a new customer group.

The requirements for in-store bakery ovens have not changed fundamentally, but the pandemic has brought individual trends and topics into focus and even put some on the priority list for the first time. These include thinking about the social distancing of employees and the reduction of contacts between operator, goods and oven through intelligent operator interaction and the automation of handling by loaders and unloaders.

Efficient work with fewer and less trained personnel is another common thread that has been gaining renewed importance for some time. On the one hand, this goal is followed by controls that bear the label ‘child's play’ and require little more from the staff than pressing a picture on the touchscreen.

IN-STORE OVENS

© MIWE

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On the other hand, a much more important contribution to efficiency is made by the increased networking of in-store ovens with the entire infrastructure of the stores as well as with production, logistics and the further processing of freshly baked goods, wherever this takes place.

The use of sensors that are able to detect and assess the situation in the kiln and incorporate this information into the control system is becoming increasingly important. Artificial intelligence is a term that is appearing more and more, even if the definition is still inconsistent. It remains to be seen whether this will also lead to more flexible management of baking capacities on the sales front.

All manufacturers of in-store ovens now offer their own networking solutions. They are designed to increase the responsiveness of store management and provide various

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reports on capacity utilization, water and energy consumption, operating errors, etc. – in some cases more than customers had previously asked for. The pandemic has accelerated interest in remote diagnostics and maintenance across all market segments. No one wants to see out-of-house technicians scurrying around the stores at the moment; they would rather stock up on their range of spare parts and train the in-house technicians.

Of course, a number of issues that influenced purchasing decisions in the past, such as energy consumption, water management and ease of cleaning, are still relevant today.

Increasingly, oven manufacturers are observing a growing demand for deck ovens, especially in those countries and distribution channels where ‘Artisan Bread’ is advertised, and which naturally should come fresh from the oven at all times. +++ www.bakingbiscuit.com 01/2021

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IN-STORE OVENS

DEBAG Deutsche Backofenbau GmbH, www.debag.de

MIWE Michael Wenz GmbH, www.miwe.de

Wachtel GmbH, www.wachtel.de

Have you seen a change in demand for in-store ovens due to COVID-19 in 2020 compared to 2018 and 2019 a) in chain stores b) in supermarkets c) in foodservice?

We are noticing a reluctance to invest, both among bakers and retailers. Many customers are waiting.

Even under Corona conditions, we are not seeing a slump in demand for in-store ovens – on the contrary, demand remains high, both among chain stores and in supermarkets and foodservice. What we can also observe is a clear increase in inquiries from ‘career changer’. In other words, we are being approached by more and more young companies and start-ups that are new to the industry and want to establish themselves in the baking or snacking sector.

WACHTEL is considered one of the founders of classic in-store baking, and so this always has been and still is a big issue for us.

In-store baking is increasing sales in the stores, which is becoming more and more important especially in times of café closures.

Are any changes mainly reflected in the number or volume of orders or has the requirement profile for the equipment also changed?

We have not noticed any changes in the requirements profile.

In terms of numbers, there has been a clear increase, but there is also a noticeable desire for digitization options – a trend that has been going on for some time and has certainly been reinforced by developments in 2020. The simplest possible end-to-end operating logic on all equipment and the ability to fully manage or even control all equipment remotely make work much easier for many operations particulaly in times like these, when staff are deployed flexibly and spontaneously and travel or contact restrictions apply. It also makes it much easier to adjust the product range, as many operations have done. In addition, the demand for deck ovens continues to rise – a trend going back to artisanal work even in the store environment that we have been observing for some time.

The store oven PICCOLO has been further developed and adapted to the current needs of customers.

Energy savings are the most important change, of which we are of course very aware of today; it's not only good for the environment, but it also enables huge cost savings.

What is the main issue for customers today?

The price has become even more decisive, just as good quality, simple menu navigation, intuitively designed operation, the appropriate software, and the networkability of all of the ovens.

In addition to the aspects already mentioned, there is certainly the issue of service. This is particulaly relevant in the production of baked goods, as any failures (whether in the area of oven or refrigeration technology), even if they are only of short duration, are fatal, as the goods can then no longer be sold. Therefore, great importance is attached to efficient, reliable service and robust technology that is less susceptible to failure.

WACHTEL's customers are true artisan bakers who produce high-quality baked goods. This is both for the end customers and for our customers, the bakers, where the awareness of quality and regionality has gained great importance, especially in such challenging times as the Corona year 2020.

We are noticing a renewed focus on classic bread ovens, such as our electrically powered INFRA or the gas or oil powered COLUMBUS. In-store baking increases in-store sales, which is becoming increasingly important, especially in times of café closures.

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Are there any country-specific differences?

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The world of baked goods is diverse and regional differences are great – the same is true of the requirement profiles of our customers, who span all parts of the globe. The above-mentioned trend, back to deck ovens, is much more noticeable internationally: companies with a focus on artisan bread and sourdough bread (and indeed pure wheat sourdough) are much more strongly represented in the export market than in Germany, for example. But other types of dough management are accompanied by other demands on technology, such as the desire for shorter baking times and higher baking temperatures. We are therefore in close contact with our regional managers and representatives in order to be able to meet these requirements with high-performance solutions. However, what unites our customers worldwide is that they value quality and reliability. This means that we benefit from the fact that the total cost of ownership and long-term quality aspects are taken into account when purchasing.

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IN-STORE OVENS

Welbilt, www.welbilt.com

Werner & Pfleiderer Bakery Technologies, www.wp-l.de

WIESHEU GmbH, www.wiesheu.de

What we have been able to see since spring 2020 is that, in general, major investments by companies are being postponed or canceled, so demand for high-quality kitchen and baking equipment has declined. However, certain trends and themes will become even more apparent in the industry due to the pandemic.

These include, above all: more efficient work with fewer employees, the highest quality and best service, social distancing in professional kitchens, bakeries and sales, and maximum hygiene. This requires appropriate technologies and innovations.

We can confirm the general market trends, which from case to case, may mean: a) Unchanged demand b) Somewhat reduced demand c) Rising demand

Basically, even before Corona, the distribution of demand for in-store ovens is never constant and the proportion of different target customers varies from year to year. This year, however, there was a clear reluctance on the part of all of our customers in the spring, as we all didn't know what was coming. In the course of the year, this normalized to a large extent, especially among chain stores and in the retail sector, as these industries were classified as systemically relevant and were therefore allowed to keep their stores open. Of course, this is more difficult for chain stores with large café areas and in the food service sector due to the recently ordered closures. However, we are unable to assess the impact of the second lockdown at this stage.

These changes affect both the number and volume of orders and the requirements for the equipment.

The changes are purely numerical. The requirements profile for the devices remains unchanged.

From our point of view, the timing of orders was particularly affected. Many planned orders were postponed in the spring, presumably to wait and see what would happen. Some of these were then certainly made up for in the 'more relaxed’ summer months – compared to the previous year. Some orders however, have probably been postponed for a longer period of time.

The topics that are currently particularly in the foreground with our customers and the entire industry include the areas of digitization and automation. But small, flexible concepts that can be deployed quickly and take up little space are also in demand at this present time.

The main focus is on the requirements for baking and bake-off of baked goods and snack products. The trend is towards networking/remote monitoring and simple operation.

Process efficiency and quality, a high demand on the baking result and partly new, solutions that are suitable in reducing operator interactions and (touch) contacts.

In Germany, snacking is on the rise. In Eastern Europe, snacks and baked goods are in high demand.

No significant country-specific differences can be identified. Manual control is desired in some countries.

Baked goods are of course very different and there are also countries, such as France, where manual control of the oven is more associated with the baker's craft than in many other countries. However, from our point of view, the requirements mentioned under point 3) extends across national and industry boundaries.

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IN-STORE OVENS

How do in-store ovens today network with the customer's IT (cash registers, store control programs, energy optimization programs, automated ordering, etc.)?

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What possibilities do the in-store ovens that you supply offer in terms of data evaluation and reporting functionality?

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How important is the capability for remote diagnostics and maintenance during the current pandemic situation?

DEBAG Deutsche Backofenbau GmbH, www.debag.de

MIWE Michael Wenz GmbH, www.miwe.de

Wachtel GmbH, www.wachtel.de

The future is digital. Many bakers are already using the corresponding software, such as our Filianet – software for networking and remote maintenance of the ovens.

All-encompassing systems like Shop-IQ are clearly the future.

This holistic thinking is becoming more and more prevalent, so we are glad that we laid the foundations for it early on. Our plants could be networked long before digitization was even a topic, and with our MIWE shop baking suite management system, we offer an extraordinary range of possibilities. But in order to be able to think about and implement networking across processes, customers have to accept a fundamental change. This requires the will to change and sometimes also the necessity for change, which may not always be given. In short, our technology can do much more than is currently required of it.

Unlike most other remote access systems on the market, WACHTEL REMOTE offers the baker all-encompassing remote management for every piece of WACHTEL equipment across the business. This monitoring tool is also a pioneer when it comes to security, as it is based on the so-called ‘Store&Forward principle’. This means that potential interruptions in network connectivity (e.g., unstable WLAN conditions in branch offices) have no impact on functionality or performance.

The FilialNet reporting module offers: • Individual report creation, e.g. baking behavior, used programs, baking quality, freshness, availability, utilization and energy consumption of the equipment – in the individual stores • Automatic report generation (e.g. monthly) • Comparison of daily data reports (e.g. operating hours, baking and heating time) – saved automatically • Target/actual comparisons • Data evaluation as a table, graph or diagram

With this question, you address another important aspect of successful digitization: Capturing and collecting data alone is of little use. The true art – i.e., the greatest benefit for the customer – is when the data also speaks, i.e., when the system uses reports to process the flood of individual data in such a way that, for example, sources of error can be identified or recommendations for action can be derived. This is exactly where the reports in the MIWE shop baking suite come in: Utilization profiles show energy-saving potential and various reports on quality indicators show optimization potential in terms of quality – to name just two examples. Thanks to the close cooperation with our customers, new report functionalities are constantly being added - MIWE sbs is therefore a very practice-oriented system.

The all-encompassing WACHTEL remote monitoring tool WACHTEL REMOTE enables seamless monitoring of baking operating times, manual interventions, idle times and active eco-functions. Baking program runs and histories are logged and graphically displayed.

Library-based program management allows centralized administration and distribution of uniform programs across devices, branches and stores. Operating and consumption data (e.g., energy consumption) can be read out on an oven- or device-specific basis and used for quality and usage analysis. The tool thus supports the increase in energy efficiency of equipment and processes and, in its function as a quality management tool, reproducible product results. Quantifiable efficiency parameters are essential for traceable process optimization.

The possibility of remote diagnosis is always important, but especially in the current situation; the more that can be done remotely (reducing contacts), the better.

It is becoming increasingly important.

We are in the fortunate position of being able to draw on our many years of experience in the field of refrigeration technology – there, we have even been practicing remote monitoring 24/7 for many years with our MIWE remote service. The prerequisites for remote diagnostics are also fully given in the area of in-store baking – provided that the customers have the necessary infrastructure for this.

Due to the current pandemic situation and the resulting reduction in contacts, remote diagnosis and remote maintenance in the event of error messages are of crucial importance. At WACHTEL, this has been the norm for years.

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WACHTEL REMOTE is free of charge. The integrated ENERGY MANAGER provides compact, clear and daily updated cost reports for different time periods (day, week, month, year). This measures how much water, electricity, gas or oil is consumed and when, and the effectiveness of energy-saving measures can be checked. Accurate forecasts are derived from the precisely documented resource consumption. The overviews of the operating costs can be obtained directly from the IQ TOUCH control unit on the oven.

IN-STORE OVENS

Welbilt, www.welbilt.com

Werner & Pfleiderer Bakery Technologies, www.wp-l.de

WIESHEU GmbH, www.wiesheu.de

Many of the appliances from the Welbilt family can access important information via kitchenconnect®: Report management (consumption data, utilization rates, production cycles, etc.), quality management (HAACP data, recipes, cleaning cycles, quality measurements, etc.), service management (equipment diagnostics, maintenance programs, etc.), asset management (equipment and installation data, manuals, etc.), and menu management (recipe creation and modification, recipe library, assignment of daily segments, etc.).

In principle, our in-store baking ovens can be networked and managed via a central control center. Baking programs can thus be created or changed centrally. Statistics on the baking programs carried out can also be called up. For energy optimization, the consumptions can be confirmed, but the actual energy optimization takes place directly via the baking oven control.

Networking with the store control programs is already standard for many customers. There is usually an interface between the software for oven networking and the store control system. Connections to energy optimization programs or POS systems are possible via interfaces on the appliance, but this can only be implemented with new control systems.

Cafés/bakeries and bake stores require a continuously diverse range of baked goods and snacks with consistently high quality and the ability to measure customer satisfaction. Easy and straightforward access to data related to equipment operation and performance enables the fastest possible preparation of snacks and pastries of the highest quality. Welbilt's kitchenconnect® equipment networking puts this information at the operator's fingertips, allowing management of recipes and menu offerings, as well as updating equipment firmware at one or more locations with the touch of a button.

As also described above, statistics show switch-on times, baking processes carried out, operating errors, error messages and energy consumption.

Open interfaces enable all data evaluations required by the customer.

The data provided can be exported and then evaluated and analyzed as desired. In addition, we offer various 'ready-made’ reports on energy and water consumption and baking and cleaning program selection or standby and preheating times.

During the ongoing pandemic and in the spirit of social distancing, remote data retrieval has become even more important.

The desire of many operators is to optimize processes and results and improve customer satisfaction. In addition, the long-term goal is to create a platform that allows the company to adapt to the new market realities.

Since there are usually no trained bakers or technicians working in the stores, remote maintenance and remote diagnosis are particularly important in this area, regardless of the current pandemic situation. However, troubleshooting always requires the deployment of a service technician, even in Corona times.

Access to the branches for suppliers and partner companies has of course also been restricted in recent months and kept to a necessary minimum.

For this reason, our first and second level support in our service department has been further developed this year to make use of all networking options or to be able to solve customer queries, without the need for a physical technician, by asking specific questions. Independent of Corona, this is a very important topic for WIESHEU, which forms the focus of further development.

The article will be continued in the next issue. www.bakingbiscuit.com 01/2021

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NEWS

Reading Bakery Systems has introduced a Baked Granola Production Line, a complete system including mixing, dispensing, and baking technologies. “With more of today’s consumers focused on health and wellness, the opportunity for healthy baked snacks like granola continues to grow. We are pleased to offer a complete Granola and Granola Bar Production Line to the snack food industry built on leading technology and unmatched flexibility,” said Shawn Moye, vice president of Sales, RBS. The new line comprises an AMF Batch Mixer, an RBS Omega IV Dispenser with an overhead kibbler, and PRISM Emithermic Oven. The line offers the flexibility to incorporate topping conveyors after the oven, and a guillotine cutter and slitter for bar applications. The Omega IV Dispenser with Kibbler can be fitted to

© Reading Bakery Systems

New granola line from Reading Bakery Systems

a wirecut cookie line to make granola, as well, according to RBS. The same oven is used to bake both types of products.

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UK-based Sugden Ltd, specializing in the design and manufacture of hotplate systems, has launched the Mini Hotplate system to its portfolio of equipment, a line specifically designed to help small- and medium-sized bakeries manufacture a range of products on a single piece of equipment with a small footprint. The new, semiautomatic equipment is designed and developed to incorporate all of the technologies used in the company’s larger systems. It can produce up to 1,200 quality, batter-based products (such as pancakes, crumpets and pikelets) per hour and it can also be used for sheeted products such as potato scones and Welsh cakes, the company announced at the launch.

The company also recently acquired the intellectual property of Vanderpol Waffle Systems (previously part of AMF Bakery Systems Europe BV), so it can now manufacture, supply and install a wide-range of industry-leading waffle and funcake systems. The acquisition marks Sugden’s plans to further grow

Puratos buys Ruskhleb

© Vanderpol

Sugden expands product range, acquires Vanderpol

in 2021, both in the UK and internationally. Over the last five years, the company has doubled in size, with turnover growing to GBP5.5m over 2019/20. +++

Puratos announced it has acquired Ruskhleb, a bakery ingredient manufacturer from Saint Petersburg, in a bid to expand its presence on the Russian market, with locally-made sourdough varieties. To supply more customers in the country, Puratos also said it was investing in new and local sourdough productions. “We are proud to strengthen our presence in Russia and to continue acting as an innovative partner for a market that has been so welcoming to us for more than two decades,” Olivier Tilkens, regional director Northern & Eastern Europe, Puratos, said in a statement.

Over the years Puratos has developed expertise in natural fermentation and knowledge of baking cultures from all over the world, acting as a leader in the sourdough ready-to-use market for more than 30 years. © innazagorulko – stock.adobe.com

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Ireland: Twomeys Bakery to supply Aldi with cakes

Ireland's Twomeys Bakery will supply Aldi Ireland with Apple Tarts, Fruit Scones, Apple Sponges and Apple Crumbles next year. The pastries will be sold under Aldi's own brand name Grainne's Bakery in all of its 145 stores in the country. The discounter has confirmed the EUR1.5m deal, which has been agreed for 12 months, as reported by the portal “rte.ie”.

Twomeys Bakery, based in Dromcolliher in County Limerick, began working with Aldi at the end of 2019. The company employs approx. 44 staff and supplies other retailers including Tesco and Spar as well as SuperValu in Ireland. The range includes around 50 different breads and cakes. +++

NEWS

Belgian biscuit manufacturer Lotus Bakeries has completed a minority investment in USbased Partake Foods through its FF2032 capital fund. Partake is reportedly a fast-growing brand of gluten-free and allergy-friendly biscuits. The range includes soft and hard biscuits in a variety of flavors.

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© Lotus Bakeries

Lotus Bakeries invests in Partake

French company TMG (Together Means Greater), owner of MECATHERM, has acquired a majority stake in the Canadian ABI Auto-Bake Industries Ltd. Headquartered in Toronto.

ABI is one of North America's leading producers of bagelmaking equipment, automation systems and robotics for bakeries. The company is led by founder and CEO Alex Kuperman, employs around 80 people and has annual sales of approx. CAD20m (EUR12.8m).

MECATHERM is headquartered in Barembach, France, and produces industrial ovens and production lines for the manufacture of baked goods. The company headed by Olivier Sergent manufactures at two locations in France and generates an annual turnover of around EUR100 m with 420 employees.

The two companies have already collaborated in advance and jointly launched a line for industrial bagel production called MECABAGEL in September 2020. The forming, cooking, sprinkling and drying stations came from ABI, while the proofing, baking, cooling and freezing came from MECATHERM. For the cooking process of traditional bagel production, ABI developed a very special solution, the so-called ‘waterfall’ cooking.

According to TMG, the acquisition strengthens the international presence of MECATHERM and ABI LTD and expands their product range of innovative solutions for industrial bakeries. +++

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© MECATHERM

MECATHERM parent company takes over bagel equipment specialist ABI

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PRODUCTION

A balanced bake makes perfect Better baking for biscuits and cookies means matching the intended baking curve of the product, stage by stage, consistently and efficiently. With its Emithermic oven, Reading Bakery Systems provides complete control over five baking parameters that create a more balanced bake.

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Flexibility is essential when the task is baking cookies and biscuits that can greatly vary in characteristics. Reading Bakery System’s Emithermic oven can be optimized for each type of product in this segment by controlling and combining five parameters on each oven zone: temperature, upper and lower air circulation, exhaust, and heating source. The Emithermic oven is a fairly new innovation combining traditional baking concepts and different equipment designs with the flexibility and efficiency of modern technology, enabling control over the different stages in the baking profile of a biscuit or a cookie, from development, through to setting, and drying and coloring.

Each of these stages has different requirements from the oven, which generates different effects on the product while fine-tuning parameters to the item’s profile. To accomplish this, flexibility is a must – especially regarding the different types of baking that it can provide, which should include both radiant and convective heating. The goal is to achieve a balanced bake efficiently, and this is reached by targeting each of the baking stages. “The Emithermic oven offers bakers the flexibility to have both radiant and convective baking and a combination of the two in order to target the development and setting stages with a high degree of accuracy, in comparison with an oven based on just one of the two heating technologies.

It gives bakers the control and flexibility to create a baking profile that is best suited for the requirements of the specific product throughout the baking stages,” Joe Pocevicius, European sales manager, Reading Bakery Systems, explained in an interview. As it incorporates capabilities for both radiant baking (best suited for wire-cut and deposited cookies, for example) and convective baking (the choice for hard and soft biscuits), manufacturers with all types of cookies and biscuits in their portfolio stand to benefit the most from this technology, as it can easily switch between baking modes.

The PRISM Emithermic Oven Zone blueprints A typical oven zone can be designed in different lengths ranging from 9 to 18 meters. Each zone of the oven can also be configured according to the product’s baking cycle and according to the stages within the baking cycle: developing, setting, and drying and coloring. For example, a three-zone oven could be configured so that the first zone mainly targets

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the product’s development stage. In this case, the first zone would have predominantly radiant baking to maintain humidity and support the development of the chemical reactions responsible for creating the flavors.

©R

BS

The second zone fulfills the needs of the setting stage, meaning it provides a combination of radiant and convective heating. With the chemical reactions completed, the focus is now on creating the shape and structure of the product, for which less radiant baking is needed. This is also the beginning of the drying process.

The third oven zone can provide convective heating exclusively for the final baking stage, so that the remaining moisture is extracted as quickly and efficiently as possible for the drying and coloring of the product.

While it can achieve three types of baking (radiant, convective, and conductive), the operating principle of the Emithermic oven is similar to that of convective forced air ovens. Each oven zone has a combustion penthouse where the air is directly heated using a gas burner, electric burner, or an alternate heat source. “We typically don’t use heat exchangers in order to maximize heat value,” Pocevicius explains. The hot air is then distributed to an air channel above the product and an air channel below the product. The lower channel blows air underneath the product belt and convectively heats the belt. The hot belt then conductively bakes

PRODUCTION

the bottom of the biscuit or cookie. The upper air channel can distribute heat onto the product in two ways: 1. In the radiant baking mode, the hot air is not allowed to leave the air channel. Instead, it is forced onto radiant panels, which absorb the heat and radiantly bake the passing biscuit or cookie.

2. In combination mode, some of the hot air still heats up the radiant panels and radiantly bakes the product, while some of the air is also allowed to leave the channel and contact the product to bake it convectively.

The oven’s flexibility to closely match the requirements of each type of product is ensured by controlling and combining the five parameters on each oven zone. “For cookies, for example, the preferred baking type should be mostly radiant, at least at the beginning of the oven, with very low exhaust levels to preserve humidity.

The airflow in the upper and lower channels can also be controlled, as well as the required temperature,” the specialist from Reading Bakery Systems illustrates. This makes the Emithermic oven very flexible for all types of hard and soft biscuits, as well as wire-cut deposited cookies, brownies, cookie brittles, or even baked granola.

To further optimize the oven’s settings according to the product’s characteristics, SCORPION data logging technology can be used to measure each of these five parameters. SCORPION profiling provides data, showing where in the oven each stage of

Developing Interiors Begin flavor developing reactions.

High temperature and low exhaust settings.

the baking cycle is taking place. The logging system is sent through the oven to measure those parameters, along the width and the length of the oven belt. By following their progression, the start and finish of the different stages can be mapped out. Moreover, a probe can be placed inside the product itself, which details its temperature profile.

Technology, improved By comparison with previous-generation technologies found in either cyclothermic or recirculating ovens, the features built into the Emithermic oven sought to simplify concepts used by both of its predecessors. This also makes the oven very easy to operate. Improvements resulted in the five control points (temperature, upper/lower air circulation, exhaust, and type of baking technology). “Most importantly, all of these settings can be stored in the recipe control, so there is no need for operators to learn and remember them. On the contrary, both the recirculation oven and the cyclothermic oven have many more control points that need to be learned and understood by the operator,” Pocevicius adds.

For example, the cyclothermic oven bakes the product using a series of steel tubes above and below the product belt and the airflow in each one of these tubes is controlled using a manual plunger. Depending on the width of the oven, each oven zone can have several plungers that the operator has to set up and understand. Similarly, the recirculation oven also has many dampers that control the airflow to upper plenums, lower plenums, for radiant baking, for convective baking, and other functions. Manual commands that traditionally adjusted airflow were removed in the Emithermic oven.

Setting Textures Set the product shape by removing moisture faster with heat and air. Starches crystallize. Increase exhaust.

Coloring & Drying Caramelizing and Maillard reactions create flavors and color the product. Lower temperature and high exhaust to dry.

Temperature (oF)

250 200

Internal Temperature of a Biscuit/ Cookie

150

Dough Development (105-160 oF, 40-70oC)

100 50

0,0

1,0

2,0

Time (Min)

3,0

4,0 Source: RBS

0

Ovens and the baking process

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PRODUCTION

Convection Zones Used in the last 50-66% of the oven to increase drying efficiency and uniformity.

Able to dry products and control coloring by adjusting the air flow or increasing the temperature.

Source: RBS

Emithermic Zones Used in the first 33-50% of an oven. Helps to develop products with minimal airflow allowing products to spread and lift without air currents skinning over the surface of the product which causes cracking.

RBS Hybrid Ovens for Biscuits and Cookies

“Also, although the recirculation oven can offer both radiant and convective baking, airflows are difficult to control and there’s a lot of heat loss due to design inefficiencies,” the specialist highlights.

Energy savings were also factored into the design of the Emithermic cookie and biscuit oven from RBS. Its convective capabilities alone make it more effective than a pure cyclothermic oven, which relies on radiant heat for all three stages of the baking cycle. While great for development, radiant baking is not optimal for quickly removing moisture from the product in the drying and coloring stage. Also, using the cyclothermic oven’s steel tubes to radiantly heat the oven’s belt creates a lot of heat loss. For example, air first needs to be heated in the combustion penthouse, then the hot air needs to heat the steel tubes below the belt, and finally the steel tubes need to radiantly heat the travelling belt. RBS reduced the number of heat transfers by blowing hot air directly from the lower channel onto the belt, heating it convectively. Compared to traditional recirculation baking technology, the Emithermic oven features a specially designed Thermatec radiant ceiling, with high-emissivity panels that absorb and retain heat for longer periods of time. The emissivity of these Thermatec panels ranks as high as oven bricks and ultimately results in energy savings for the manufacturer, as less heat is needed to heat and maintain the temperature of these panels.

Developments over time When designing this oven, Reading Bakery Systems aimed for top performance that can be easily achieved with a user-friendly interface. Each product or recipe variation can be stored in the oven’s controls history for fast and easy start-up at the touch of a button. “This level of automation and simplicity can eliminate a lot of the problems caused by high turnover and shortage of skilled operators. Our clients don’t need a lot of time and resources to train operators on how to run our oven,” the specialist points out.

www.bakingbiscuit.com 01/2021

© RBS

20

As with any equipment, longevity depends on proper maintenance and whether the oven is used within its design limits.

As long as it is properly maintained, the Emithermic oven will run well and will last for decades.

Although the oven is still a new technology, RBS is already working on new features and capabilities. As a standard, the oven can be customized with features such as belt cleaners, tracking systems, band temperature monitors, infrared moisture meters, gas flow meters, etc. “More exciting is perhaps how we’re using these ovens and what new and unique equipment we’re placing before and after these ovens. For example, we recently designed a production line using this Emithermic oven that can produce a variety of biscuits, cookies, as well as baked granola,” Pocevicius adds. This could be a perfect line for a manufacturer who has limited space but wants a lot of flexibility and a broad portfolio of products. Compelling work is also underway to make the oven even more ecofriendly, the specialist anticipates: “We can already offer our ovens as completely electric and are working at a fast pace to make them compatible with alternate heat sources such as hydrogen.” With sustainability taking center stage as the underlying trend from all points of view and throughout applications, such features can only make the equipment a more attractive and logical choice for baking all types of cookie and biscuit products. +++

NEWS

© Coppenrath & Wiese

Coppenrath & Wiese expects 5% increase in turnover

THE Peelboard Suitable for all industrial baking lines.

Conditorei Coppenrath & Wiese, Germany’s largest manufacturer of frozen baked goods, is estimated to close the 2020 financial year with sales growth of around 5%. Its total sales are expected to amount to EUR440m (up from EUR420m in 2019). The positive development of branded products in Germany, where sales are 8% above the previous year’s value, has contributed significantly to this. “The sales of our products have developed well. Overall, we observed a shift in our product range from large to smaller items. Our individually portioned sheet cakes in the ‘Cafeteria fein & sahnig’ range and the new ‘Café Landhaus’ line, as well as the entire bread roll range, benefited from this in particular,” says Managing Director Peter Schmidt. Regardless of the major challenges in 2020, the growth target of 25% in the period 2018 to 2023 remains unchanged.

The company generated 20% of its turnover from exports.

Business in the USA increased, while sales in the UK remained at the previous year’s level. Two lines for ready-made cakes are currently under construction. In addition, construction work for a new engineering center started in November 2020 and is scheduled for completion by summer 2021. +++

1

Excellent non-stick effect

1

Perfectly hygienic

1

Stable & durable

ARYZTA sells remaining Picard shares

bakeware & coating ADVERTISEMENT

ARYZTA is selling its remaining stake in the French frozen food retailer Picard. According to the group, an agreement has been reached with Lion Capital and Investment Group Zouari (IGZ) to sell its 4.64% stake in Picard for approx.

EUR24m. The transaction is expected to close early in the first quarter of 2021. ARYZTA had already sold the majority of Picard to IGZ in autumn 2019. At that time, IGZ had paid EUR156m for 43% of the Picard shares. Meanwhile, ARYZTA's previous major shareholder Veraison has reduced its stake in the group. According to its own information, the fund sold a total of around 4% in ARYZTA in the last trading days in December 2020. These went to two Swiss family offices in two separate block trades. VERAISON now holds significantly less than 3% of ARYZTA AG. +++

Kempf GmbH | Carl-Benz-Straße 3 | 85296 Rohrbach ++49 8442/9669-0 | www.kempfgmbh.de

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PRODUCTION

Gluten-free made in Poland At its site in Poland, free-from specialist Ultrapharm creates gluten-free bakery products and © Ultrapharm

continuously adds to its high-quality product range. Since September 2019, the company has been doing so with the help of a new M-TA oven by MECATHERM.

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Gluten-free products are the result of sophisticated formulations, first and foremost, with more than 20 compounds on average, joining forces to turn into successful bakery wares taste-wise, texture-wise, and with the desired nutritional profiles. For the baking process itself, the challenge stems from being able to cover a wide range of different products in small volumes. The oven has to handle a wide range of products in a growing market while optimizing operating costs, a critical concern when dealing with frequent product changeovers.

needed. Alternatively, the M-TA helps optimize operating costs, in this case, thanks to its ability to quickly react to different products, with varying baking curves. It takes the M-TA 20 minutes to reach the temperature of 100°C, which it can also lose in 30 minutes when needed, as it is equipped with a fast cooling function.

For French specialist MECATHERM, this describes its latest oven, the M-TA, designed with versatility in mind: “This oven can achieve very specific, custom baking curves for all kinds of products. It does this thanks to its modular design as it’s built with independent, compact heating modules (of max. 25 sqm) - meaning that the baker is able to follow a very precise temperature curve with the same oven. Besides, another characteristic is truly unique to this oven: each of its independent heating modules can provide no fewer than six different heating modes: from the top side, it can use convection, radiant heat, and a combination of both; from the bottom, you can select between convection and radiant heat,” Marie Laisne, product manager Ovens, highlights.

Fit for the job For the product range it needs to process, Ultrapharm selected radiant heat, convection, and a combination of both at the top and only convection below, for its M-TA oven. This setup supports a high degree of flexibility to bake a wide range of goods, as the company bakes products on trays and molds and the additional bottom-level heating sources were not

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© Ultrapharm

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© Mecatherm

PRODUCTION

Consistent baking quality is another requirement that the M-TA meets along its entire width. This is made possible by controlling air circulation to always remain homogenous inside the baking chamber. When baking by convection, hot air comes in high and low; the air exchanges heat with the product and returns to be reheated with the burner. “This flow of hot air could cause uneven product coloration if not precisely controlled,” she notes. Moreover, the oven can quickly and automatically adapt to the product load to avoid overheating and minimize product loss, respectively.

“For the customization of Ultrapharm’s M-TA, no extra features were added; instead, the best options for the company’s production requirements were selected. This oven is 2.4m wide and a little over 13m long, with three modules and a baking surface of 32sqm,” Laisne details. It features steam injection at the oven entry, for crusty bread, and steam injection in the air circuit, to control hydrometry in the baking chamber.

The conveying solution chosen here is simple, exclusively mechanical, as it does not need lubrication or adjustments in terms of tensioning or centering. A steel grid belt is used, an open mesh that will support fast convective heating from the bottom. This was the best option for Ultrapharm as its products are baked in trays or pans.

A new feature that helps control the chimney operation is also included; the extraction of fumes and vapors is controlled via the HMI, but the operator can also choose to go over or under the balance recommendation provided by the oven, to achieve certain effects. “The close control of the chimney has a direct and strong impact on energy consumption,” the specialist underlines.

An upgrade Before switching to the M-TA, Ultrapharm had been using rotative rack ovens for its production, artisan ovens that only offer convection heating. The choice was made at iba, when the oven debuted, and the company saw it in action.

Commissioning followed, and the installation was on course about six months later. This upgrade benefitted the Polish site in terms of baking precision, which can be achieved with radiant heat featured by the M-TA; operating costs were also significantly improved, as the constant opening of the oven’s doors to make small volumes of varied goods was taken out of the equation along with the heat losses it incurred.

The upgrade to an industrial oven came as a natural progression from a line-up of artisan ovens added over time, and it also helps maintain product consistency. At this stage, the M-TA is not integrated into an automated production line at the site and is used stand-alone. It is currently loaded and unloaded manually; however, it is always possible to take the next step and include automation for these stages as well.

The baking process is also safer, as hot racks do not need to be handled anymore.

Baking times were also reduced when switching to the M-TA tunnel oven, MECATHERM’s specialist highlights, while being able to fully adjust for different baking curves in each of its modules. For Ultrapharm, this means baking pastries, breads, rolls, pizza, and cakes - and the list is expanding with new products regularly. For example, steam injection is used for crusty bread to support product growth, crust structure, and final gloss; while tin bread requires intense heat all around the product, which is best provided by convection.

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PRODUCTION

© Ultrapharm

© Mecatherm

In the latter scenario, if the mold is not subjected to enough energy, a curving effect may occur after depanning, or uneven coloration on the sides of the product; the answer to these problems is convective heat. For pizza, for example, intense heat bursts are required, with very high temperatures, from over 2 to more than 10 minutes, depending on the type and variations.

After installation, the production and maintenance teams went through training which typically lasts two days, to cover the oven’s design, working principles, and operation guidelines.

Since then, the French technology specialist has been supporting Ultrapharm on certain issues, from technical to preventive maintenance or feature upgrades that become available. “For example, a service feature is now in development, the M-Care, which is a preventive maintenance tool that would notify operators. We will have service probes throughout the oven to continuously gather and analyze data. Deviations are pointed out in real time,” the specialist illustrates. This is an option that Ultrapharm can add at a later time.

Efficiency from all angles When Ultrapharm acquired the M-TA oven, it had just been launched. Several aspects contributed to the decision to invest in this brand-new technology; among them, Simon McManus, a qualified baker with 36 years of experience and Ultrapharm’s general manager, highlights the overall oven installation time, and the service within the MECATHERM team. These doubled with characteristics of the oven itself that are important for Finsbury Food Group’s company: “The M-TA is an energysaving system and it works well with all our diverse product range,” he told us. Thanks to its program pattern, the oven can be efficiently set to meet the criteria of each product – it covers heating options for anything from pastries, which need lower temperatures as they contain more sugar and fat, to bread, which bakes at higher temperatures.

Numerous production lines are interfaced with the new system, from extruders, depositors, a mini pan line bread line and a smart line, proofer, coolers, and packing solutions.

Operations using the M-TA are planned a week in advance at Ultrapharm’s facility, to maximize production efficiency – meaning the types of products going into the oven are scheduled according to their baking requirements. “We cluster rolls, pastries, and cakes together because they have a similar baking profile,” he illustrates, adding that, “The oven is good at what it does because we can make changes quickly: we can

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© Ultrapharm

move within temperature intervals of 100°C in a matter of minutes.”

Unlike most ovens, which allow the heat to go out of the baking enclosure, this oven has a damper that prevents most of the heat from being expelled during program changes. This has been another element that greatly benefited production here, because the products require varied temperatures and frequent changes. “We normally bake at around 150-200°C, whereas wheat products use about 250°C and a short baking time. The ingredients going into each product will dictate how we manage baking,” he adds.

Every hour, Ultrapharm can get around 3,000-3,500 products through the oven; previously, this number would only be around 1,400, so they have doubled their efficiency in terms of production speed, and for a wide range of gluten-free specialties. “Our portfolio includes pastry, cakes, vegan SKUs, bread, rolls and baguettes; to date, our SKUs are over 60 on-site, with several new sweet types of pastries and healthier SKUs such as high-protein and low-calorie categories,” McManus details. Around 75% of the production belongs to breads, with rolls and pastries having a share of 10% each, and cakes representing 5% of manufacturing volumes. “Going forward, biscuits, cakes, and pastries with vegan, gluten-free SKUs will be focus areas,” he highlights as areas with potential (last year, Ultrapharm invested EUR500k on a smart line to make vegan products, including French baguettes, paves, burger buns, etc.).

There is room for expansion, too, market-wise and with the support of the existing technology. This site doesn’t at the moment serve the country market where it’s based, for example; only around 2% of production stays in Poland. The business operates across Europe, with key customers in Sweden, France, Holland, Romania, and the UK. To expand locally, Ultrapharm has begun adapting products for Polish consumers and is entering the market from the second quarter of the year. Further increases in capacity would also entail expanding the team. There are three teams currently running operations at the facility in eight-hour shifts, so another team could be added. The existing equipment is already able to ramp up production, with no changes in the line-up, as it’s currently running at about 45% capacity.

Increasing production to full capacity will also give a clearer, measurable picture of the energy savings, McManus explains: “When we run at full capacity, we could earn about 20-25% savings in gas and electricity.” +++

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S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Single-serve sustainability COVID-19 affected the ways companies pack their products, organize operations and run their facilities. It also caused an increase in demand for industrial pre-packaged bakery products, and

© Syntegon

sustainable ones. A major step towards more sustainable packaging is enhancing its recyclability.

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Mono-material films further cater to the sustainable packaging requirements of many industries, e.g. bakery

Moving to individually wrapped items and increasing the packaging speed is not without challenges. Packaging smaller, individual portions creates a bottleneck within the feeding process: for example, single-serving items would have to be picked and placed into the flow wrapper without harming their integrity, which is especially needed when handling fragile bakery goods. Packaging products individually also faces limitations that stem from the shape of the product itself, whereas bulk packaging often does not require a specific shape. Product distribution systems are required here, or robotic solutions to feed, align and group the products.

product protection as conventional plastic but can be fully recycled via established recycling streams.

Moreover, portion packs can support product quality: singleunit packaging within a multi-pack keeps products fresh for longer, since consumers can portion the products more easily.

Added functionalities, such as easy opening and closing features for resealable packs, further increase the product’s shelf life.

A sustainability mindset Given the notable focus on sustainable packaging, equipment manufacturers such as Syntegon Technology have been adapting existing packaging machinery, including horizontal flow wrappers, to package confectionery products in paper flow wraps, and cater to the need for alternatives to classic film-based packages. “Paper flow wraps are currently in the spotlight as a viable path towards a truly circular economy, which envisages to close energy and material cycles through efficient resource use, recycling and waste reduction,” Andreas Schildknecht, global product manager robotics and bakery at Syntegon Technology, highlights. Paper

This move also marks an abrupt departure from previous considerations regarding (environmental-friendly) packaging, which would encourage minimal or no wrapping whenever possible. Packaging sustainability becomes, under these circumstances, an even more important goal. A major step towards more sustainable packaging is enhancing its recyclability; one way to achieve this is by wrapping bars, cookies and crackers using polyolefin-based mono-material films, such as polypropylene (PP). It offers the same

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© Syntegon

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S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

27

© Syntegon

Shaped paper pods are a sustainable option for single-serving packing of e.g. sandwich spreads, confectionery, or cookies

packaging on the one hand helps achieve these goals, since it is made from renewable raw materials as well as being recyclable and biodegradable. As far as plastic packaging for baked goods is concerned, on the other hand, thinner films with modified dimensions and narrower sealing seams will further reduce the amount of material used in packaging, the specialist explains. “From a sustainability point of view, it is also crucial to reduce the amount of packaging material. Some individually wrapped products are packed too loosely and come in oversized packs with a lot of enclosed air, creating other sustainability issues along the whole supply chain,” Schildknecht points out.

To answer packaging sustainability needs, Syntegon developed its ‘paper-ON-form’ retrofit set for a wide range of its traditional horizontal flow wrapping machines. The solution comprises a patented flow-wrap forming unit and sealing jaws for paper cold- and heat-sealing applications. It allows barrier papers to be processed without wrinkles, scores or cracks, while the customized cold and heat-sealing tools gently create the sealing seams. While the paper is shaped and processed, its barrier properties are maintained. “The ‘paper-ON-form’ retrofit kit can be used for different types of paper as well as conventional materials, enabling a step-bystep transition not only to paper packaging, but to a successful interplay of product protection, sustainability and efficiency,” the specialist explains.

To choose the best available option sustainability- and safetywise, the characteristics of the packaging material should be thoroughly assessed, as bakery products have different barrier and sealing requirements. While film solutions will continue to play an important role in maintaining shelf life and minimizing food waste, there is a chance some products could be

packaged in alternative packaging materials, including paper.

“The extent to which paper packaging is suitable for baked goods certainly depends on the requirements of the products at hand. At first glance, mono-materials seem more suitable as a sustainable packaging solution for bakery products,” Syntegon’s specialist underlines. Mono-materials like PP are on the rise thanks to their outstanding recyclability. Unlike commonly used composite packaging materials, monomaterial films only comprise layers of the same type of plastic.

They are recyclable and therefore help to reduce plastic waste.

In terms of product safety, a tight pack protects the product first and foremost. Horizontal flow wrapping equipment offers extended sealing times, such as long-dwell or box motion sealing technology. For example, Syntegon Technology’s Amplified Heat-Sealing technology (AHS) for mono-material packaging combines the sealing capabilities of box-motion wrappers with the speed of a conventional rotary wrapper.

“Thanks to the extended sealing times and the precise KOENIG Motiv4 NTS 91x53.qxd

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S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Paper flow wraps are used for confectionery products such as chocolate bars, as seen at Mondelēz

application of heat to the film, the flow wrapper can process a large variety of films at very high speeds, including fully recyclable mono-materials,” Schildknecht explains.

Paper or plastic?

The choice in packaging materials not only impacts the product’s qualities over time, but also the operations throughout the packaging operations. Processing alternative materials at constant speeds is a matter of properly adjusted packaging machines. In the case of plastic film, for instance, modifications on the film dimension can have a big impact. The specialist illustrates that “Reducing roll width and take-off length by two and five millimeters per pack, for example, can result in material savings of over 130,000sqm at an output rate of 200 packs per minute, in 23-hour operation.” Over a period of 50 weeks, this is equivalent to an area the size of 19 soccer fields.

When it comes to paper, the biggest challenge is the desired production output. “On horizontal flow wrappers, for example, cold seal plastic films can run at a speed of up to 1,500 pieces per minute. In order to achieve comparable speeds with paper, technological developments were needed, especially in the area of paper forming and heat-sealing media,” he says.

Syntegon Technology has successfully conducted machine tests showing that flow wraps can be produced using coldand heat-sealable paper without compromising on speed.

However, heat sealing poses a significant challenge for paper packaging, because paper is a good insulator, meaning that it is not suitable for high output packaging, since sealing times have to be as short as possible. As a result, cold sealing is the common choice for high output quantities of paper flow wraps. A very thin plastic barrier layer provides the necessary product protection, while the packaging still qualifies for recycling.

Fully-recyclable Cadbury chocolate wraps Paper packaging scores highly because it can be reprocessed in existing paper recycling streams. Consumers also perceive

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© Mondelēz

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paper packaging as particularly sustainable and make their decision at point of sale based on touch and feel. Paper packaging receives increased attention with flow wraps, leading food manufacturers to consider the change from conventional packaging materials to paper-based packaging. However, this format poses a particular challenge, as paper is not as easily processed as films and can be difficult to use on existing flow wrapping machines. Mondelēz International is committed to making all of its packaging recyclable by 2025.

Aiming to package its Cadbury chocolate tablets in fully recyclable paper flow wraps, the confectionery giant approached Syntegon. Within a year, Syntegon had developed a forming unit and sealing jaws for cold sealing applications, at its test laboratory in Beringen, Switzerland. This upgrade kit has successfully been tested on Cadbury’s flow wrapping machines for chocolate tablets.

Paper packaging has a number of limitations which makes it challenging to protect the product to the same degree as proven conventional films, while generating the same output on the machine. Paper is a good insulator, and a fairly stiff material, which makes it easy to crease or tear during the pack forming-process and result in damage. The shape of the chocolate tablet itself posed an additional challenge, Syntegon revealed. While normally bar formats are easier to handle, chocolate tablets like Cadbury’s Energy tablet are much broader and very flat, which makes them more challenging to process. The packaging specialist developed the ‘paperON-form’ forming unit, a retrofit that could be installed on existing machinery, based on Cadbury’s selected paper film and the desired pack size, using 3D-printed components. The kit was installed on Cadbury’s H-series flow wrapping machine.

Comprehensive tests have shown outputs without speed limitations with paper flow wrapping essentially matching the performance of flow wrapping using films. The forming unit and sealing jaws can be used with different types of paper, regardless of thickness and supplier, making paper packaging a real, sustainable option. +++

MARKET

Health is on the menu

Consumers have been increasingly opting for healthier versions of their favorite baked snacks, a trend that boosts sales across flavor categories, from sweet to savory. After a year that saw a reevaluation of entire supply chains, the use of ethical, health and dietary claims in Sweet and Savory Biscuits* in Western Europe is more important than in any other region worldwide, Euromonitor finds.

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In the last five years, organic and free-from gluten sweet biscuits have seen the biggest growth in Western Europe. The market also faces rising competition from fruit and nuts bars, as consumers look for more reduced sugar and on-the-go snacks. This trend is very similar in the savory biscuits category, as consumers are seeking healthier alternatives. Vegetables, pulse and bread chips, popcorn and rice sales have grown accordingly, at CAGRs of 23%, 5% and 8% respectively from 2015 to 2020, in contrast to savory biscuits, where sales have grown by a 1.5% CAGR. All these categories should maintain positive results in the next five years but as the first three gain in maturity, their sales increase should gradually slow.

Despite current external factors, permissible indulgence remains a hot topic in food and drinks, health-conscious consumers included. Consumer purchasing power is forecast to suffer as a result of the pandemic – but health through food will remain important, and demand for premium, indulgent snacks will keep growing in the future.

Consumption priorities when in lockdown Sales of sweet biscuits showed very positive growth in 2020, especially in North-Western European countries, where year-on-year value sales increased by 6%.

Savory biscuits posted a slightly more modest performance in Western Europe, rising by 4%, with the most significant growth in Ireland (12%) and Germany (8%).

In the first month of the pandemic, national lockdowns and panic buying had led to massive stockpiling across the whole region. Today, consumers are still looking for convenience and shelf-stable food as they spend most of their time at home, and while foodservice remains closed. With the rise of e-commerce and home seclusion, consumers have also shifted their consumption from on-the-go snacks to larger pack sizes. But with less opportunity to go outside, they are increasing the time they spend in their kitchen. In some countries, such as the UK and France, flour was barely accessible in the first month of lockdown. Yeast was largely missing from supermarket shelves throughout Europe in spring.

The supply chain has improved since, and home-made snacks have become an important competitor for packaged biscuit manufacturers. * Cookies and crackers are called sweet and savory biscuits according to Euromonitor’s categorization

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© Liudmyla – stock.adobe.com

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MARKET

The supply chain ripple effect In 2020, the entire packaged food industry has had to reimagine its supply chain strategy across Western Europe. With stockpiling and the closure of foodservice, demand increased brutally in March 2020, and shelves were drained quicker than they could be refilled. Food manufacturers have had to rethink their supply chain since. Some of the common strategies evident in Western Europe include expansion of the supplier network, outsourcing production, as well as streamlining product portfolios - keeping fewer variants and focusing on those in highest demand. According to Euromonitor’s Voice of the industry survey, in October 2020, 26% of European professional respondents declared that their company had reviewed or adapted their supply chain for business continuity.

mainly focused on price and were based on short-term contracts. Now, some manufacturers have redesigned this approach and are looking for flexibility and reliability over cost.

During the first lockdown, sales from mid-sized biscuit players were negatively impacted by the shift of sales from hypermarkets and supermarkets to e-commerce and convenience stores. Mainly present in large grocery stores, mid-players struggled to access or maintain distribution in convenience stores and to acquire key SEOs on retailers’ websites. Other leading competitors have reconsidered their relationship with logistics companies and suppliers. Before the pandemic, their calls for tender to select their partner

In 2020, filled biscuits were the most successful category in Western Europe. This is mainly due to the launch of Nutella Biscuits in Western Europe in the last two years. The pouch format lends itself to home consumption and the biscuit recipe breaks new ground with its original Nutella filling. In France, only one year after the release of the original biscuit, multiple private label alternatives such as Carrefour, Lidl and Intermarché, have launched their own comparable variants.

As palm oil remains a contentious issue in food, Carrefour’s

Comfort in biscuits Brand loyalty was damaged by the pandemic. During the first lockdown, with panic buying, low stocks pushed consumers to buy whatever they could get. Cautious consumption also negatively impacted brand loyalty. As a result, private label sales have increased in multiple countries. However, indulgence has kept a very important role in boosting consumer wellbeing. Secluded at home, consumers are looking for innovation, and are willing to purchase products that can offer them new experiences.

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MARKET

option is palm oil-free, a characteristic that remains important for consumers, particularly in sweet spreads and sweet biscuits.

Market dynamics According to VIA, Euromonitor’s online SKU tracking tool, from March to June 2020, the number of SKUs available in sweet biscuits, snack bars and fruit snacks, and in savory snacks has declined by around © Eu 30% across 40 key markets globally. With the ro m o nit o r increase of e-commerce sales, there is a clear strategy of streamlining the number of SKUs available to help consumers navigate through innovation and new product development online. In the upcoming years, investments in innovation in biscuits should be more limited, as companies prioritize improvements to their online presence and supply chain efficiency. In 2020, Dirk Van de Put, CEO International, publicly confirmed the global strategy to “reduce the number of SKUs and make the business simpler”.

Impulse purchases, one of the main drivers of biscuit sales, are more limited online, making it important for industry players to limit consumer confusion with too many launches, and in the short term, focus their investments on key products.

There are several possible scenarios for a new balance in this landscape, as COVID-19 has shifted the way consumers shop and the approach they have to food. These consequences will directly impact the savory and sweet biscuits categories.

First, home seclusion has boosted homemade cooking and consumer curiosity for dessert mixes, with sales rising by 4.5% in value in 2020 across Western Europe impacting negatively on packaged baked goods and snack sales.

In addition, local supply is high on the consumer agenda, in terms of both availability and in the wish to support local businesses, but this tends to come at a price. Local businesses will need to think about how to be competitive, as in modern retail the number of local players is growing and price sensitivity should increase in the near future as a result of the pandemic and subsequent economic decline. Private-label brands are also promoting their search for local ingredients; their leadership should allow them to offer affordable goods and maintain their position in biscuits and crackers.

For example, in Spain, private label commands a 30% share in sweet biscuits and 42% in savory biscuits. Leading

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Margaux Laine Margaux joined Euromonitor International in 2019 as an analyst associate after completing a Master of Management in Food and Beverage at SDA Bocconi in Milan. Margaux strengthened her knowledge of the French food industry by focusing on direct research within the first months and has now extended her expertise by commissioning several Western European projects.

Also specializing in Snacks, Margaux has been in constant dialogue with Euromonitor’s analysts from other regions to discuss and compare the trends in Snacks across the globe. Margaux is also a content writer and she recently published Ferrero and Lindt & Sprüngli company profiles, which provide in-depth overviews of the recent activities and results of both companies.

grocery retailers were quick to adapt to consumer demand in March, with low prices further stimulating sales.

Finally, product claims should remain very important in guiding consumer choice and promoting the more distinctive characteristics of products. According to the Euromonitor Product Claims and Positioning tool, collecting packaged food SKUs claims online, the use of ethical, health and dietary claims in Sweet and Savory Biscuits in Western Europe is more important than in any other region worldwide. For example, in Western Europe, 16% of savory and sweet biscuits have an ethical-related claim (i.e., Organic or Fairtrade) on the front of their packaging, whereas worldwide, only 4% of the product range is showing one of these claims. In France, leaders such as Mondelēz or St Michel are launching multiple organic biscuit ranges while in Belgium, Denmark and Portugal free from gluten biscuits are forecast to grow by CAGRs of more than 10% from 2020 to 2025. Despite increasing unemployment and prospective decline in consumers’ purchasing power, healthy alternatives remain a key element to boost premiumization in the sweet and savory biscuits industry.

Resilience and adaptability are the driving forces behind the global consumer trends in 2021, all created, influenced, or accelerated by the pandemic. Among them, it’s worth noting that consumers are more concerned about sustainability going forward, particularly about brands that help make the world cleaner, healthier, more resilient, and equitable, as shown in Euromonitor’s Top 10 Global Consumer Trends 2021.

Moreover, convenience is redefined to include e-commerce, a digital land of opportunity for businesses, with biscuit manufacturers included. +++

picture left © Tatyana Sidyukova – stock.adobe.com

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R AW M AT E R I A L S

A delicate balance: perfecting work with gluten-free ingredients As gluten-free bakery is decisively increasing its foothold into the mainstream market, growing by about 25% each year, research seeks to improve product taste, texture and nutritional profiles. In the absence of gluten, this has been a challenge. It takes exact science and

technology

to define and improve digestive wellness.

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It all starts with the dough. Monitoring and thorough testing for ingredient variations will enable close control of the dough processing and, ultimately, the product’s quality; this is especially important when dealing with different types of gluten-free flour with varying characteristics. The goal is to reach the ideal dough viscosity, which is unique to each, from corn-based dough to chickpea-based dough, for instance.

Baking trials will help determine optimum values in each case. Also, a fundamental understanding of the ingredients and their individual physicochemical characteristics, such as solubility, gelling and emulsification properties, can help to predict their impact on viscosity – a key indicator of the dough and the quality of the final baked good.

From the start of the process, the dough’s kneading properties offer useful information that can support formulation development. As single ingredients are added or changed, their effect on the whole dough system can be measured, necessary steps when developing products made by gluten-free flour. The International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (ICC) recently held a joint webinar with guest experts Aylin Sahin, a postdoctoral researcher at University College Cork (Cereal and Beverage Science Research Group), and specialists from Brabender – Stefan Jansen (application engineer) and Jessica Wiertz (manager Applications). We spoke with the specialists to further delve into the science explaining and supporting high-quality gluten-free bakery. “The right water absorption is one of the main important criteria for a proper crumb and a good product. Measuring the flour or the whole gluten-free formulation during kneading provides a helpful indication of how a gluten-free raw material acts during production. Moreover, different types of mixers cause different energy input during kneading which has a great impact on the development of any network,” they elaborate.

Viscosity control ensures quality Consistent, quality gluten-free products begin with the incoming raw materials. Water absorption is an indicator that should be monitored from the start, as specialists recommend, to ensure the quality of incoming flour is as expected. In the R&D stage, when dough formulations are developed, the ideal viscosity is trialed or a certain viscosity can be targeted. For example, the target consistency for a chickpea flour will be

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© Brabender

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44 BU (Brabender Units), while corn flour will have 150 BU – vvalues based on dough systems including 2% hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC, gluten replacer). Not only do the different types of gluten-free flours differ quite a lot, but there is also notable variation between different types of corn flours, the experts say. They illustrate that the particle size distribution is one of the factors responsible for this, e.g., if finely ground corn flour or corn grits are used; the target application for the flour analyzed also gives an indication for the right level of water absorption.

The International Association for Cereal Science and Technology Today ICC is one of the foremost international organizations in the field dedicated to international cooperation, the dissemination of knowledge, and the improvement in safety and quality of cereal-based foods.

The Association has its headquarters in Vienna, Austria with members from all five continents represented.

R AW M AT E R I A L S

Stability at arrival (S1) [s]

Stability at departure (S2) [s]

Drop-off: Distance from consistency line to the mean torque after 20 min after water addition

500

300 200

Method used Sample size: 300g flour Mixing speed: 63 rpm Chamber temperature: 30°C Monitor torque – consistency

100

0

Stability (S2) [s]: Time between S1 and S2

100

200

300

Time [s]

400

500

600

700

Farinogram with its typical evaluation points

While raw materials may have varying characteristics, they should be within acceptable ranges to obtain constant quality gluten-free products, as each set of qualities may be suitable for certain applications. There are weak glutens and strong glutens, and several qualities in between; weak gluten flour is good for wafer production, for example, while wheat bread loaves are a better match for strong gluten flour. The specialists underline that protein content should be paid attention to, as it is a rough indicator for the flour’s performance, but protein quality is getting more and more into the focus: “Nowadays, it’s getting more common to describe the flour quality by protein quality instead of protein content.”

improve the visco-elastic properties of the system. Furthermore, sourdough can be added to the formulation to improve the baked good’s quality, the specialists highlight. Lowering of the pH value this way has several benefits, from increasing shelf life to reducing staling and lowering the pH of the system.

When formulating gluten-free products with additional ingredient claims, dietary fibers are a popular choice. They mainly influence the water absorption; however, they also physically affect the dough network. It might be therefore necessary to take countermeasures, e.g. by a pre-treatment of the fiber, which can be done by milling, hydration or functionalization, Brabender’s experts recommend.

To differentiate among gluten qualities, the Brabender GlutoPeak offers methods for pure gluten analysis and for glutencontaining flour analysis. Within minutes, a characteristic gluten aggregation curve is recorded, and the quality and end use of the gluten or flour can be assessed. To optimize the water addition level, Brabender’s Farinograph, a rheometer with a sigma-blade-mixer, is well-established within the milling and baking industry. For the gluten-free flours, a modification of the existing mixer is necessary, the specialists note: “A tool called FarinoAdd-S300 is attached to the mixer and keeps the gluten-free dough in the mixing area.” This tool can be used to develop products with lesser-known raw materials, including hemp flour, buckwheat and quinoa.

To further enhance the nutritional profiles of gluten-free goods, plant proteins are a good place to start. In this scenario, the maximum level of protein content in the range of an acceptable sensory profile has to be determined, first of all.

To further improve sensory characteristics, the combination of different protein types as well as the addition of enzymes can help. The specialists also recommended assessing the maximum level that can be added as they can affect the product’s mouthfeel. To optimize sensory characteristics, pre-milling, pre-hydration or heat treatment can be used.

The addition of hydrocolloids together with the fiber as a premix can be suitable; alternatively, enzymes can be used.

Ingredients and recipes The most important functional ingredients of a gluten-free dough and bread are the hydrocolloids and proteins. Both play an important role in terms of water binding, and also

In conclusion, accurately monitoring the process and the ingredients supports the further developments for all characteristics of gluten-free products, from working with functional replacers to improving the product’s taste and shelf life. +++ www.bakingbiscuit.com 01/2021

Source: International Association for Cereal Science and Technology

400 Torque [BU]

Consistency [BU]

600

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RESEARCH

Process design using forced dough relaxation By means of invasive mechanical and electrical impulses, the dough resting time of wheat doughs after mechanical energy input can be drastically shortened and dough properties equivalent to those of rested doughs can be achieved quickly in seconds.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the gluten structure immediately after mechanical stress (left), as well as its change through a rest period or forced relaxation (right)

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The mechanical/electrical stimulation for the optimization of the dough resting time for wheat pastries is an AiF/FEI funded research project, which was carried out at the TU Munich, Chair of Brewing and Beverage Technology in the working group Grain Technology and Process Engineering. The project aims to reduce the time-consuming and process interrupting rest periods in bakery production to a minimum, so that the process steps of dough relaxation can be integrated in-line into existing processes and process interruptions due to rest periods, can be eliminated. Although some engineering-based solutions are already available for continuous dough processing without relaxation phases (e.g. extrusion processes), these are often unsuitable due to the size of the plant. Alternatively, they often represent special solutions for specific applications [1] and, in some cases, result in products with modified textural properties [2]. Consequently, the solutions currently available on the market are unsuitable for most products and companies. As a result, more complex processes with the intermediate step of dough resting have to be observed for most baked goods.

This is due to the structural properties of wheat dough. After a mechanical energy input, such as kneading, the gluten network is very elastic. This limits the dough's ability to be

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processed by machine. In the subsequent resting phase, the gluten network is restructured, which changes the mechanical properties of the dough. Relaxed doughs are more plastic and have a higher extensibility and yielding. This change in the dough properties is an absolute prerequisite for successful further processing. Without them, perfect dough division or shaping by machine would be drastically impeded [3].

Depending on the kneading technique and gluten quality, these resting times range from 10 to 30 minutes [4]. Depending on the product, many companies also use rest periods between the rounding and long molding, as otherwise the surface could burst open due to the excessive stress during baking.

The sequence of mechanical loads with subsequent relaxation phases is therefore essential in order to develop the desired structural properties in the end product. A method that enables dough properties corresponding to those of rested doughs to be achieved in just a few seconds therefore represents a significant potential for process optimization and shortening for all doughs containing gluten. Particularly in view of the fact that every German household on average consumes just under 58.9 kg of bread and baked goods per year and 67% of these baked goods come from bakeries of an industrial character [5], the integration of dough resting in the ongoing process (in-line solution) would be associated with a high potential for

© TUM

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Figure 2: Illustration of the methods of forced relaxation by means of a) alternating voltage pulses, as well as d) ultrasound and the resulting mechanical dough properties. Measurement of the extensibility by means of micro tensile test (Kieffer Rig method) for doughs of different lengths (b & e) and forced doughs by means of alternating stress (b) and ultrasound (e). Measurement of dough flexibility by compression test for doughs of different lengths (c & f ) and forced doughs by alternating voltage (c) and ultrasound (f ).

increasing efficiency. However, regardless of the size of the company and the degree of automation, shortening the dough resting time basically allows for a simplification and shortening of the process sequences.

Invasive impulses, mainly electrical, but also partly mechanical, have proven to be suitable to accelerate the restructuring processes of the gluten network during the resting period.

The electrical pulses are applied in the form of alternating voltage in a voltage range between 110 and 260 V for application times of 1-5 seconds. For the application of mechanical pulses, high-energy sound (20 KHz) with amplitudes of 5 to 30 µm and application times of 30 to 120 seconds are used.

The experimental setups are shown in figure 2 a) for alternating voltage and 2 d) for ultrasound. Immediately after kneading, the doughs are subjected to forced relaxation and compared with the properties of unrested and rested wheat doughs via various laboratory analyses and baking tests.

Forced relaxed (voltage treatment) doughs in particular show the same behavior as rested doughs in all measured properties (extensibility, yielding, relaxation behavior). Figure 2 b) shows that the elongation of a forced relaxed dough (200 V, 2 sec) corresponds approximately to that of dough that has been rested for 25 minutes. Looking at the softness, the potential of forced relaxation becomes even clearer: here, the softness of the forced relaxed dough corresponds to that of dough rested for 50 minutes. For the ultrasonically treated doughs, the effect on the extensibility is similar to the effect of a

voltage treatment (Fig. 2 e)). Here, too, elongation is achieved that corresponds to dough that has been rested for 15 to 20 minutes. However, ultrasound shows no effect on the extensibility. In this case, the ultrasonically treated dough corresponds to the dough that has not been rested (Fig. 2 f )).

These corresponding viscoelastic dough properties between forced relaxed dough, especially voltage treated dough, and conventionally rested dough show that the restructuring processes of the gluten network can be forced and controlled by electrical or mechanical impulses.

Since the impulses used for forced dough relaxation are invasive applications that actively modify biological structures, it is essential to assess the vitality of the yeast and the baking capability of the dough. Standard baking trials with tin loaves of white bread serve this purpose. Doughs that rest for 0, 10 or 20 minutes between kneading and processing are used as a reference. The forced relaxation is also carried out between kneading and processing by means of alternating voltage (260 V 1 sec) or ultrasound (amplitude 18.9 µm 60 seconds). The remaining process steps (kneading, proofing and baking) are kept identical in order to allow a comparison of the two processes. After baking, the breads are analyzed by measuring the volume, crumb hardness and pore pattern. As already indicated in the results of the dough analysis, the identical properties of the forced relaxed and conventional rested breads can be confirmed with regard to their volume and crumb hardness, especially for voltage treated doughs

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© TUM

RESEARCH

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RESEARCH

Figure 3: Influence of the dough resting time or forced relaxation (ultrasound or alternating voltage) between kneading and processing on the pore pattern of tin loaf white bread. Illustration in a), as well as evaluation of the number of pores and the area percentage of the pores on the total surface of the bread slice in b).

(results not shown). Likewise, after baking, there are also effects equivalent to resting time for ultrasonically treated doughs with regard to volume and crumb hardness. However, the effect of ultrasonic treatment is significantly lower compared to stress treatment. This also becomes apparent when the pore pattern of the reference breads with 0 and 10 minute rest time between kneading and processing is compared with the pore pattern of the forced relaxed breads (Fig. 3 a)). The 10 to 20-minute rest period between kneading and processing gives the breads a coarser-pore structure. This can also be seen from the decrease in the number of pores with a simultaneous increase in the proportion of pores in the total area of the bread slice (Fig. 3 b)). The pores are thus reduced in total by the resting period, but become larger. A nearly identical effect as a 20-minute resting period becomes apparent for the voltage treatment. This can be seen visually as well as via the non-significantly different number and area of pores.

The ultrasound treatment also shows a resting time equivalent effect on the pore pattern, but this corresponds to a resting time of about 10 minutes. With the results of the baking tests, the effects of forced relaxation on structure and/or yeast damage can be excluded and bread properties (volume, crumb hardness, pore structure) can be demonstrated to be equivalent to those of dough that has been left to rest.

The easy applicability and short application time (1-60 sec) of the electrical/mechanical impulses allows the integration of the dough resting step into the running process. This leads to a simplified and more effective process in terms of plant effort and time. The detailed micro- and macrostructural analyses, some of which are presented here, consisting of rheological analyses, strain measurement, microscopic methods and baking tests, have clarified the underlying functional mechanisms of forced dough relaxation for different flour qualities.

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Based on the presented shortening potential, existing process sequences in bakeries were evaluated with respect to their suitability (dwell time for application of the impulses) for the integration of the relaxation methods: Conveyor and transport belts in particular proved to be suitable application points.

In summary, the forced dough relaxation is a method that allows for the elasticity, softness and resilience of wheat doughs in a few seconds without significantly changing the gas release and holding capacity of the products. +++ This IGF Project of the FEI is/was supported via AiF within the program for promoting the Industrial Collective Research (IGF) of the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), based on a resolution of the German Parliament.

Pro-ject AiF 18565N

Literature notes 1 (2005), doughs by the belt. Bread and baked goods 4: 20-22 2 Delete K (2015), Influencing rheological wheat dough properties. Bread and baked goods 1: 54-61 3 Friend W (1995) Verfahrenstechnik Brot + Kleingebäck, 1st ed. BakeryConfectionery-Management, vol 5 Gildebuchverl., Alfeld 4 Klingler RW (2010) Fundamentals of Grain Technology, 2nd, fully revised edition Behr, Hamburg 5 Zentralverband des Deutschen Bäckerhandwerks e. V. Facts & Figures Bakery trade – Baker's trade. COSMOTO | Lime Flavour.

Authors: S. Brandner, T. Becker, M. Jekle Technical University of Munich, Institute of Brewing and Beverage Technology, Research Group Cereal Technology and Process Engineering 85354 Freising, Germany; contact: mjekle@tum.de

© TUM

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MARKET

Capitalizing on the at-home baking movement for center-store growth 2020 was the year of baking bread. When COVID-19 put the world on lockdown, panicked consumers stocked up on flour and yeast and started kneading. As a result, baking staples saw exponential growth, with sales of baking yeast up 457%, baking powder up 178% and flour up 155%, over the previous year ending March 28, 2019, according to Nielsen data.

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Print sales for bread cookbooks in the United States also grew 145% for the 9 months ending September 2020. And according to Kristen McLean, NPD book industry analyst, the at-home bread baking movement could have staying power. “Baking offered a comforting escape and yeast suddenly became more difficult to find than toilet paper. Sales of bread cookbooks are still well above 2019 levels, and given that the pandemic is still with us, the trend could be sticking around for a while.”

Even if the popularity of at-home baking bread continues in a post-COVID world, signs indicate the increased interest in the bread category – particularly artisan and craft-style – could provide opportunities on grocery store shelves as well.

The International Dairy Deli Bakery Association’s What’s in Store 2020 supported that, indicating 75% of shoppers are more likely to switch to a brand that provides in-depth product information, while 59% believe transparency means a ‘plain English’ description of ingredients.

In a September 2020 study commissioned by Ingredient Communications, most respondents expressed a preference for natural ingredients as well as a distaste for artificial additives. 81% said they find a label that states it is ‘made with natural ingredients’ very appealing or quite appealing, while 78% said they find a label that states it is ‘free from artificial ingredients’ very appealing or quite appealing.

In a December 2020 episode of the American Bakers Association’s ‘Bake to the Future’ podcast, Robb MacKie, ABA president and CEO, interviewed Fred Penny, president, Bimbo Bakeries USA. The discussion recapped 2020 and looked forward to 2021, and the conversation suggested that this is the year to build on consumers’ renewed appreciation for baked goods.

Penny pointed to the change in consumer behavior as one reason for the lift in a category that was previously struggling to grow. “The big shift to food consumed at home – as opposed to away from home – clearly has driven the category significantly. And one of the big questions we’re asking ourselves is, ‘How much of that shift is going to be sustainable?’”

But the growth in the bread category as a whole – coupled with other trends like the demand for clean labels and greater ethical and environmental transparency in foods and ingredients – indicate that consumer interest for artisan products in the grocery store could be an area for growth and innovation.

“Transparency throughout the supply chain will dominate in 2021, with consumers searching for brands that can build trust, provide authentic and credible products and create shopper confidence in the current and post-COVID climate,” said Lu Ann Williams, director of insights and innovation at Innova Market Insights.

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© La Brea Bakery, Los Angeles, CA

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© Chabaso Bakery, New Haven, CT

MARKET

Transparency has long been a hallmark for Los Angeles-based La Brea Bakery, which has been selling its artisan breads nationwide since 1998. “We know that consumers want to identify every ingredient on the label, and we deliver on that,” said Chris Prociv, VP of marketing and innovation, La Brea Bakery.

The company saw an uptick in sales in 2020, particularly in its Take & Bake portfolio.

And Nielsen data shows that the artisan bread take-and-bake category is up almost 40% against a year ago, as compared to pre-COVID when the category was growing at a rate of 7%.

“Consumers are realizing that take and bake is the next best thing to homemade,” Prociv said. “When they want bread, they want that sensory experience, even if they don’t have the time to make it themselves.”

In October 2020, Rustik Oven expanded its artisan bread line nationwide. The bread — available in Sourdough, Artisan White, and Hearty Grains & Seeds — is made using a traditional European baking process and is Non-GMO Project verified and made without artificial colors or flavors.

Other large commercial baking companies have expanded into the artisan space.

“For so long, we heard our consumers’ feedback over the struggle of choosing between the superior quality of bread from their favorite local bakery and the longer shelf life and convenience of bread from a grocery store,” said Jessica Grane, marketing director, premium and artisan breads at Bimbo Bakeries USA. “Thanks to our signature baking process, we’re proud to bring this unique offering to the artisan

bread category and offer our fans the taste that they love in a more convenient way.”

Trend reports suggesting an increased demand for products that promote immunity – no doubt sparked by the pandemic – and overall health could be another factor driving consumers to purchase artisan.

According to Innova’s Top Ten Trends for 2021, six in 10 global consumers are increasingly looking for food and beverage products that support their immune health. And an October 2020 study by FMCG Gurus showed that 64% of consumers are more interested in ingredients or food and drink products that provide protective or preventative health benefits.

Studies have shown that the slow-fermented bread could be easier to digest and contribute positively to the microbiome and overall gut health. “I think there’s an opportunity, especially with sourdough, to lean into the nutritional advantages that artisan bread can provide,” Prociv said.

A simple, clean ingredient list could also be reframed and communicated more clearly to consumers. “At the end of the day, bread is flour, water, yeast and salt,” said Charles Negaro, Jr., CEO of New Haven, Connecticut-based Chabaso Bakery, a family-owned commercial bakery that has been selling ciabattas and other artisan breads for more than 30 years. “I see an opportunity for increased storytelling in the bakery aisle and for better educating consumers on what they’re eating and how it contributes to their overall health.”

When promoting the benefits of commercially produced bread, Penny suggested that it’s important to craft the message holistically, rather than honing-in on just one small piece.

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MARKET

© Chabaso Bakery, New Haven, CT

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“I think it’s confirming the messaging about a balanced diet and emphasizing the messaging about the fact that the products we provide can fit into a healthy lifestyle,” he told MacKie on the podcast. “I think that’s part of it. I’m not so sure specific claims necessarily are going to be the end-all answer. I also don’t think we can forget about the fact that consumers are still interested in sustainability, food waste, etc., and as an industry we need to be all over that. We’ve got to continue to work on all elements of the areas of responsibility that we have as an industry. Nutrition is certainly one of them, but it’s not the only one.”

Regardless of the trend factors and supporting data that suggest now is the time to dip into artisan, there are certainly inherent production challenges – namely, time, resources and cost – to baking this style on a commercial scale.

For Negaro, one thing is universally true when it comes to true artisan bread baking: There are no shortcuts. “Flavor and texture take time. At Chabaso, our bread fermentation process takes 20 hours or more. We have equipment that allows us to form the dough on a large scale, but we still do much of the work by hand. We never want to lose that quality of a neighborhood bakery.”

The same is true for La Brea Bakery, in that quality is never sacrificed for the sake of cost savings. “The craft of artisan is inherently a long process, and it’s a labor of love that’s baked into every loaf,” Prociv said. “But we’ve never wavered in ensuring we take the time to produce a premium product.

We always want to deliver the best, and you can’t skimp on the details if you want that rustic golden crust and moist, chewy interior.”

“I believe we’re going to have a demand for things that just taste better,” Negaro said. “We have people who have tried better-tasting bread in the last 12 months, and they don’t want to go back. But they want that high-quality product in a way that’s easily accessible.”

Whether those consumers who picked up quarantine bread baking will abandon their sourdough starters altogether is yet to be determined. But in an October 2020 ABA webinar, Todd Hale, principal, Todd Hale, LLC emphasized the staying power of the home-baking trend and encouraged companies to find new ways to reach consumers, suggesting these new home-based behaviors will continue. “The at-home demand is still there,” he said. “I urge you to think about how to keep it going as away-from-home still struggles.”

That said, more consumers may venture back out in the coming months as vaccines proliferate and quarantines lift.

Then baking companies can seize new opportunities to capitalize on the awareness of and demand for artisan breads as they take the spotlight in the center aisle. +++

Author Maggie Glisan covers consumer trends and emerging markets for the Commercial Baking media group. She spent the bulk of her 15-year career as the senior food editor at Better Homes and Gardens, where she was responsible for producing, writing and editing stories and developing recipes for the monthly magazine and special interest publications. Prior to

And taste reigns in terms of consumer buying behaviors.

According to a 2020 Kearney food trends study, 80% of consumers reported that taste was the top factor in deciding whether to try a new food trend, followed by price (61%) and health (55%).

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that she worked as graphic designer and assistant art director in the Food Group at Better Homes and Gardens, where she took on an increasing role in content creation and editorial development.

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