Savings-savvy Capistrano’s Bakery combined two small baking operations and renovated a larger, 38,000-sq.-ft. production facility in Phoenix that features a used, multizone, traveling-tray oven it had rebuilt with state-of-the-art features. 

Chicago Specialty Bakers brings traditional, Old World baked goods to life for today’s discerning consumers.

Although the James Skinner Baking Co., Omaha, NE, maintains a highly diversified bakery business, its core ethos stems from the elegant, deceptively simple notion of 100 layers.

Golden Boy Pies still retains the homespun ideals of its roots, despite notable expansion over the years—and the future is poised to bring more of the same.

Independent—and rapidly growing—Canyon Bakehouse has set high standards for gluten-free as it strives toward baking only ‘best-to-market’ products.

Today’s market for better-for-you extruded snacks is skyrocketing, with products like veggie straws and other puffed/expanded products finding appeal among shoppers seeking alternatives to traditional offerings.

Company: Krispy Kreme, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Website: www.krispykreme.com
Introduced: November 2011
Distribution: National
Suggested Retail: $1.09 for a 4-oz. package of Glazed Chocolate Pie; $4.29 for a 14.9-oz. box of Dipped Cake

In a move toward boldly-flavored, healthful products, manufacturers are finding innovative ways to meet the needs of consumers who favor sweet and savory bakery foods and snacks. Starting with the dessert first, familiar flavors and healthful benefits can be found in many of Wholly Wholesome’s pie products.

It can be rather tough for sweet goods products these days. The huge movement to better-for-you items hasn’t exactly been good news and a smooth fairway for this category. But bakers and manufacturers of sweet goods, snack cakes and other delectable treats are watching the demands just as closely as producers in other bakery market segments, and heeding the calls.

Cookies are a robust segment within the bakery industry. There are brands that have been around for decades and have become household names, but there are also many up-and-coming brands that offer unique flavors for niche markets and are set to become the next class of pros.

Busy lifestyles and affordability aren’t the only reasons why consumers add frozen baked goods to their shopping cart each week.

From flavors to popular culture, what’s hot and cool are what drives new products from the Battle Creek, Mich.-based company.

Harris Interactive recently released the results of its 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend study, which analyzed the responses of more than 38,500 consumers on key measures of brand health for more than 1,500 lifestyle, product and service brands. When questioned about the brands they are likely to reach for when craving a salty snack, respondents chose Lay’s Potato Chips—the top-ranked salty snack for the past eight years—followed by two other Frito-Lay North America brands, Doritos and Tostitos.

Pretzels have been around for more than a thousand years, originating in southern Europe around 610 A.D., according to historians. Today, crispy, hard pretzels are consumed by people in many of the countries represented at the 2012 Olympics.

When it comes to the Olympics, most people prefer some sports over others. The same holds true for consumers when it comes to snack foods.

Low in calories, high in fiber—popcorn may just be the perfect natural snack. Of course, that doesn’t stop manufacturers from trying to up the ante by enhancing all the whole grain has to offer. Now, popcorn can be found competing with chips, pretzels and even candy in the snacking Olympics.

Pork rinds are probably the most misunderstood item in the snack category. This is surprising, because people have been eating pork rinds—also called pork skins—as long as they have been eating pigs. One of the world’s first snack foods created thousands of years ago, and favored in the southern states, pork rinds are a simple combination of fried pork skins and salt.

Phoenix-based Inventure Foods expands its portfolio of brands by entering into a licensing agreement with Vidalia Brands of Glennville, Ga., to develop new snack line.

Rudolph Foods’ Second Annual Pork Rind Appreciation Day campaign will culminate on the biggest football day of the year 

Potato chips and chocolate? Snack manufacturers and bakeries are experimenting with unique combinations to satisfy consumers’ desire for a snack with the perfect sweet-savory blend.

Bakery products are evolving all the time in today’s market. To win the race, they mix healthful and tasty ingredients with a scoop of distinction.

Demand for chocolate in snack and bakery items is driven by two core consumers: Luxury seekers; and healthy snack eaters who both share a common desire for great-tasting chocolate produced in a sustainable fashion. 

What entices each bite of a mini salted-maple, toasted-almond Cronut—as I recently relished at Donut Savant in Oakland, CA..

Snack producers and bakers have expanded their explorations into sweet-savory profiles, with sweet-salty, sweet-spicy and sweet-herbal all gaining favor.

Cracker Jack’D, a Frito-Lay brand, has added a protein-packed snack mix to its product line—Cracker Jack’D Protein Mix.

As Bühler Aeroglide’s vice president of process engineering, Tom Barber will work with customers worldwide.

Better-for-you ingredients and innovative flavors continue to keep potato chips at the top of consumers’ list of favorite snacks, while the classics still resonate.

As consumer demand for more and diverse baked goods and snacks heats up, today’s ovens and fryers let bakers and snack producers increase production while reducing related costs.

In the wake of strong demand for Donkey Chips, the company needed new equipment to significantly increase production of its line of tortilla chips. Here's how they did it.

New fryers and oils enable bakers and snack producers to create more and better-for-you versions of the fried dough products and snacks consumers can’t live without.

The global processing and packaging provider will highlight its start-to-finish solutions for the snack industry via an interactive booth experience at SNAXPO in Houston.

When it comes to sweet goods like doughnuts, Danishes, sweet rolls, muffins and coffee cake, the market is in a state of flux. As Walter Postelwait, president of Pak Group LLC/Bellarise Baking Ingredients, Pasadena, CA, puts it: “The total segment appears to be growing slowly, but has hot pockets of activity.”

The chips segment has grown quite lively over the past year, with new product areas emerging and others, like apple chips, seeing considerable growth and maturation. Snack producers are also starting to grow beyond potatoes, offering sweet potato, beet and parsnip chips.

The flexibility to produce different flavors, shapes, sizes and types of products is high on the list of qualities that snack and bakery makers are seeking from manufacturers offering griddle equipment and fryers.

Heat and Control delivers another 2-Stage French Fry fryer system out of its Hayward, USA manufacturing facility to make batter coated French fries.

Providing restaurants and food service operations with both productivity and durability, Vulcan introduces the 35-pound, ENERGY STAR certified VEG Series. It’s a value-priced fryer that truly checks all the boxes.

Fryers continue to see ongoing improvements related to hygienic design, oil management and energy efficiency. Equipment suppliers are also offering models that occupy a smaller physical and carbon footprint, and that include adaptability to handle a diverse array of products.

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.

Heat and Control, Inc., an equipment manufacturer and food processing industry supplier, recently released the OilSaver Filtration System to its Oil Management System lineup.

VITO Fryfilter, Inc. recently released an intensive cleaner individually packed as tabs, for an effective cleaning of commercial deep fryers: the VITO tab.

Bakeries and snack makers in the market for ovens, proofers, fryers, and dryers have a healthy list of features and benefits in mind. These include capabilities for customization and flexibility, reliability and consistency, temperature control, faster processing times and continuous production, and automation that operators can control and monitor remotely.

Snack and bakery companies looking to purchase new or improved ovens, proofers, fryers, and dryers have a long list of requests when it comes to features and benefits, according to manufacturers of those types of equipment.

VITO AG has announced the launch of a new product to fulfill the rising need for high-quality and easy to use filtration systems for deep fryers: the VITO VL oil filter system.

Other priorities include frying more than one product concurrently, handling both older and newer snack and bakery formulations.

ONE Brands is bringing Reese's peanut butter flavor to the protein bar aisle with the debut of its new Reese's Peanut Butter Lovers flavor-inspired protein bar.

KIND's new Savory Bars bring forth a unique mix of nuts and a smokey and spicy profile, resulting in a bold taste in every bite, per the brand.

The companies are empowering consumers to "act" and make an impact with every bar.

The gluten- and peanut-free formulation is designed to be school-friendly.

Each box contains eight individually wrapped bites, and they are available in Apple Cinnamon and Double Chocolate flavors.

The Small Batch Cinnamon Snickerdoodle Kids Bar features just five ingredients.