For Bud Keith, health and wellness was a way of life. He was, after all, a nutritionist, but his passion went well beyond a degree. In the 1960s, he established a juice bar and gym in Mission Beach, an iconic ocean-side neighborhood in San Diego.
Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery was recently able to talk to Ken Cross, chief marketing officer, Voortman Bakery, about the wafer category and how it has changed over the years.
To address ever-present and continuously growing sanitation-related concerns across the snack and bakery industry, equipment manufacturers are working to provide machinery that's easy to wipe down, doesn’t provide harborage for moisture or stray ingredients, and is simple, ideally tool-less, to disassemble and reassemble as needed.
On February 5, 2019, Bakery Concepts International was issued a patent for a mixing chamber suited to mixing a variety of dry ingredients with liquid (U.S. patent no. 10,195,572 B2).
Buckle up. The top trend driving innovation in the snack and bakery industries has no formal definition, isn't regulated, and is shifting all of the time. Yes, clean label demands are touching every facet of the food industry, from formulation to packaging and marketing, and everything in between.
Quick changeovers, smaller products, sanitation needs, oil quality and temperature control are all top-of-mind for customers of griddle and fryer equipment used for key snack and bakery applications, including doughnuts and frozen breakfast products like waffles and pancakes, as well as fried snack items, like chips.
Advances in labeling are happening at a rapid pace. Technological leaps in marking/coding technology, printers, and labeling software have improved printing speed, accuracy and flexibility to accommodate a wide range of labels in today's snack and bakery market.
Trends in snack mixes and nuts are constantly changing, but many also remain the same, as consumers are constantly searching for better-for-you snacks and the next "big thing."