Despite inflation, dollar sales in bakery are up almost 12% from last year, according to IDDBA Marketplace Report data from June, indicating that the instore bakery has indeed bounced back from COVID, said Paul Baker, founder of Manchester, UK-based St Pierre Bakery.
The instore bakery has bounced back post-COVID, but it’s not the same department as pre-pandemic, said Marjorie Proctor, marketing and design specialist for Conyers, Ga.-based Dover Food Retail / Hillphoenix.
Manchester, UK-based brioche category leader St Pierre is set to launch a new non-brioche bake-at-home range, with authentic French baguettes and crusty rolls.
St. Louis-based distributor of breads and pastries Companion Baking, which services award-winning restaurants and retail chains across the Midwest in addition to running its own local café, is expanding its bread pudding offerings for fall with a new Apple Crisp Bread Pudding – available for a limited time only.
In order to assist labor-challenged operators to expand their bakery offerings, Rich Products has launched a Fully Finished Donut Portfolio with eight flavors ranging from cake and glazed rings to iced, sprinkled, and filled.
In an age of severe labor shortages, few pieces of equipment are more valuable than depositors, which allow the automated repeated depositing of a consistent quantity of products rather than relying on a human being with a piping bag or a scoop.
At the IBIE show in September, Delta, BC-based Unifiller plans to launch several new pieces of equipment that are exclusively designed for supermarket and commissary bakeries and delis that supply supermarkets, said Sonia Bal, the company’s director of global marketing.
Birthday cakes are taking all shapes and sizes nowadays. The great news is that the tools available from bakery and cake decorating companies make it simpler than ever to add the wow factor to your original cakes and cupcakes.
While inflation and supply chain snafus have affected most corners of the food industry, makers of pies sold in grocery instore bakeries face a unique challenge in addition to those common ones: lower industry capacity due to several large producers leaving the market.
One thing the global supply chain and labor situation has driven home is the importance of retailers getting their holiday pie orders in — the sooner the better.