Rich Products offers a wide variety of decorating products for ISB including ready-to-use cake layers in many sizes and flavors, cupcakes, fillings and mixes, said Luis Martinez, technical counselor.

Rich’s also has an extensive portfolio of buttercream, including the Bettercreme line of whipped icing with over 20 colors and flavors.

Icings come in both pails and ready-to-use decorating bags, which help cut down on labor in ISBs, Martinez said.

Another great asset for ISBs, he added, is the Rich’s Bakery Academy, which launched this year.

“It helps retailers succeed in the ever-changing ISB landscape with a virtual training and education portal that inspires, educates, and trains in a flexible, hybrid learning environment,” Martinez said. “In addition, our team of technical counselors connects with back-of-house staff to support with training, merchandising and innovating efforts for their stores.”

Due to labor-related issues, there’s been a shift from labor-intense items like mixes and scratch ingredients to more ready-to-finish or fully finished formats, Martinez said.

According to Technomic’s 2023 Away-from-Home Bakery Study, some retailers have begun to make the transition to easier-to-use formats due to the impact on labor-saving time for back-of-house staff.

That, Martinez said, allows them to allocate their skilled labor toward priority offerings while still getting the sale on other items with little to no labor.

“Rich’s quickly pivoted during the pandemic to create labor-saving products such as a robust line of grab-and-go desserts and further developed the pre-whipped portfolio of icings in pails and bags.”

The top labor challenge for grocery retailers, Martinez added, is retaining skilled labor, and because of that, operators are looking for formats that are easy to prepare back-of-house and that save time but also taste good.

Decorating in ISBs has bounced back nicely after COVID, thanks in large part to those labor-saving solutions, Martinez said.

“It continues in an upward direction. Stores have begun to re-establish their programs, which in most cases were impacted by the pandemic. Labor-saving products help to ease these labor issues while keeping the bakery case fresh and innovative.”

This article is an excerpt from the December 2023 issue of Supermarket Perimeter. You can read the entire Bakery Decorating feature and more in the digital edition here.