The waffles are available in three flavors, including the first-to-market savory Cheesy Waffle.

Handcrafted in small batches, artisanal crackers made with real clover honey are filled with dark chocolate liquor combined with ethically sourced, dry roasted peanuts milled creamy.

The company’s goal was to create a treat with the same appearance, taste, and texture profile as its original brownie recipe.

Stellar Snacks recently debuted grain-free pretzels crafted with superfood ingredients, now officially available at select grocery stores throughout the U.S.

Sweet Diplomacy now has a brick-and-mortar location in Los Altos, CA, a commercial kitchen in Boulder, CO, and an online menu shipping across the U.S.

Wildgrain partners with local artisanal bakers to bring fresh sourdough breads, pastries, and pastas directly to consumers' doors.

Once Again Nut Butter is bringing new stand-alone cinnamon, honey, and chocolate graham crackers to market.

The new addition to the Myna Snacks lineup is made with real cheese and Italian herbs and seasonings that deliver the taste of pizza in a convenient, crispy, nutritious format.

Schär’s gluten-free Speculoos cookies and Panettone offer options for gluten-free holiday celebrations.

The new gluten-free offerings can meal options for consumers with food sensitivities at Publix stores nationwide.

Creating a pleasant stir in New York’s restaurants since 1987, Tom Cat combines the craftsmanship of artisan baking with a cupful of automation plus a pinch of top-quality ingredients

From humble beginnings 40+ years ago in a small bakery near Boston to a 30,000-sq.-ft. plant today in Chelsea, Mass., outfitted with four production lines, Golden Cannoli Shells Inc. now generates more than 100,000 cannoli shells each day. The more spacious plant is also allowing the bakery to significantly increase its capacity.

You will, if you try one from Golden Cannoli Shells Inc. The family-owned, 40-year-old bakery is rolling in the dough at its more spacious, 30,000-sq.-ft. production facility in Chelsea, Mass., to which it relocated in September. The largest national cannoli maker in the U.S. strives for top product quality and strict food-safety standards as well as to ‘just doing things right.’ It’s these and many other reasons that make Golden Cannoli our 2013 Bakery of the Year.

The sisters who cofounded Janey Lou’s Inc. have come a long way from selling their handmade treats to local convenience stores in the Salt Lake City area. Under the helm of nephew and son Ryan Fillmore, the Orem, Utah-based company has garnered convenience store and foodservice customers throughout the West and Southwest.

Located in Orem, Utah, Janey Lou’s exemplifies the state’s moniker—the Beehive State. Growing demand for the company’s scrumptious cinnamon rolls, generously-sized cookies, handmade Crispy Treats and numerous frozen dough products is keeping its management team and employees busy as bees.

Celebrating 20 years in business, with its latest cookbook hot out of the oven, Metropolitan Bakery, Philadelphia, delights in baking delicious breads and creating incredible pastries, popcorn and granola, among other foods. 

Crafting artisan breads, café loaves, pastries and more since 1993, Metropolitan Bakery’s Philadelphia production facility mixes clever flavor combinations with a pinch of automation, European equipment and top-quality ingredients to churn out incredibly fresh baguettes, rolls and country breads, seven days a week.

Demonstrating how much the company has grown over the years, John B. Sanfilippo’s impressive 1-million-sq.-ft. production facility/corporate headquarters/distribution center in Elgin, Ill., is outfitted with speedy, state-of-the-art equipment and technology to produce thousands of nut products, snacks and nut mixes.

John B. Sanfilippo’s (JBSS) 1-million-sq.-ft. headquarters and production complex in Elgin, Ill., is a real powerhouse, with a whopping 85 production lines for nut and snack processing. The company has witnessed steady growth and the challenges that go with it. And with more than 90 years of experience and a keen focus on customer and consumer solutions, JBSS tackles the tough nuts to crack head on. 

Angelic Bakehouse’s new facility in Cudahy, Wis., bakes sprouted whole-grain breads, rolls and combo flatbread/pizza crusts using ingredients ‘as close to pure as possible,’ to offer clean-label, better-for-you products that it’s happy to feed family members and proud to offer customers. 

Thanks to their new 22,000-sq.-ft. production facility in Cudahy, Wis., the folks at Angelic Bakehouse now have the room, additional equipment and the structure they need to efficiently produce sprouted whole-grain breads, buns, rolls and flatbread/pizza crusts using an unusual process.

Family-owned Ballreich Bros., Tiffin, Ohio, has a large fan base that pines for its various potato chips as well as crispy new shoestring potato sticks, popcorn, pretzels and other snacks. 

Ballreich Bros.’ 75,000-sq.-ft. potato chip and snack plant churns out 2,000-5,000 lb. of product an hour. Manufacturing product on a just-in-time basis, the family owned and operated company in Tiffin, Ohio, also produces new Sweet Potato Chips and shoestring Potato Sticks in three flavors.

It’s Celiac Awareness month, so we explore Enjoy Life Foods, the first bakery to gain gluten-free certification from the Gluten-Free Certification Organization (GFCO). In business 12 years, Enjoy Life’s mission is to make great-tasting, allergy-free, gluten-free cookies, bars and grab-and-go foods that nearly everyone can ‘eat freely’ without worry.

Enjoy Life Foods’ cookies, snack bars, chips, cereals, granolas and trail mixes are made in an allergen-free, gluten-free facility, and the company’s 40,050-sq.-ft. production plant is bulging at the seams to accommodate growing demand for its products. Enjoy Life is expanding at such a rapid pace, it may need to add a facility or relocate to a larger one. 

New influences, trends and preferences are redirecting many bakers to develop and produce new products. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is still a critical issue, as are commodities, private-label products and many business consolidations. 

The bread market is changing, with fluctuating commodity prices, a still-sluggish economy, consolidations, mergers and buyouts. 

Using advanced technology, a cross-functional operational strategy and effective collaboration tools, Blue Diamond’s ‘dream plant,’ a multimillion-dollar almond-processing facility in Turlock, CA, is a reality. The nearly 200,000-sq.-ft. site sets new standards of excellence for food safety, processing and building innovation. 

‘Going from good to great’ is a pervasive theme at Phoenix-based Capistrano’s Bakery. So is the phrase, ‘It Can Be Done.’ This rather quiet, wholesale artisan baker works hard to ensure that its products are tasty, innovative and what its customers want. 

Packaging enhancements, a twist on shapes and ingredients and many new flavor combinations continue to win over consumers. 

Going for LEED Silver certification, Blue Diamond Growers’ new, state-of-the-art almond production plant in Turlock, CA, features nearly 200,000 sq. ft. of sophisticated almond technology, setting new standards of excellence for food safety, processing and building innovation. 

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.

The upscale POP Gourmet concept has gained significant momentum since its inception—and the company continues to build energy through co-branding, diversification beyond popcorn and international expansion.

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

RW Garcia's high level of innovation has catalyzed an ever-expanding customer base for its gluten-free, non-GMO tortilla chips and crackers.

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.

Tasty, wholesome baked appetizers, meals and desserts that go from freezer to table in minutes are all-stars with today’s busy consumers.

As more consumers scrutinize ingredients in the foods they buy, bakers and snack producers are turning to inclusions to create better-for-you products that deliver irresistible taste.

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.

According to the website, ideafinder.com, we consume more than 4.3 billion lb. of snack food a year, which could be why snacks may soon end up becoming America’s favorite meal.

On its own, chocolate is a wonderful treat. Marry chocolate with the perfect flavor pairing, and the snack becomes even more memorable. Classic pairings, such as chocolate with peanut butter, raspberry or mint, are here to stay, but adventurous flavors are growing in popularity.

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.