Tastykake has released its limited time St. Patrick’s Day Snowballs. 

Tastykake will bring back its themed on-the-go packaging for football season.

The Chocolate Caramel and Triple Chocolate cakes draw inspiration from candy bar flavors and textures.

The sweet baked goods brand has renamed its Minis line with a new name and packaging.

The quartet of treats comes in heart-bedecked packaging for seasonal snacking.

Consumers are still looking for indulgences, despite the fact that many products now have health halos. However, in our current era of “little treat culture,” the bakery snacks category—aka smaller servings of snack cakes and pies—continue to be popular.

Improved weight accuracy, high-speed production, flexibility and easy sanitation are just some of dynamics bakers are looking for in depositors, dividers and rounders.

Consumer demand for artisanal baked goods and better-for-you snacks are making new laminators and sheeters must-have equipment for many manufacturers.

Growing consumer demand for better-for-you, gluten-free and innovative baked goods and snacks continues to drive bakers and snack manufacturers to explore new ingredients and formulations. It’s also prompting them to re-examine their equipment needs, as they discover that their existing machinery may not be able to efficiently handle today’s in-demand products. For some manufacturers, a new extruder may be just the ticket.

Handtmann has announced the appointment of Christian Strohm and Sean Gorman to bakery sales specialist positions in Canada and the U.S.

The puffed and extruded snack segment combines the best elements of tradition and forward-thinking better-for-you innovation.

The Honey Fruit Bar uses a combination of raisin paste, honey, rolled oats and cookie flour to deliver a great tasting meal replacer with a health halo.

A new generation of extrusion equipment for the food industry has been launched by Baker Perkins.

Customers of machines that handle puffing and extruding of snack and bakery products are focused on accommodating protein- and plant-based inclusions, hygienic design and rapid cleaning, speed and quick changeovers, better integrated controls, easy data extraction, and smaller machines that can produce specialized batches.

Flexibility, greater sanitation, gentle handling of ingredients, quicker changeovers, more precise weight control, and the ability to make products with healthier ingredients are top of mind features and benefits for snack and bakery customers of extrusion equipment and technology.

Baker Perkins has exploited innovative technology to improve process control, performance and hygiene on all the units in its Co-Ex Master co-extrusion systems, which create high-value products by adding a center filling into a cereal outer.

BreadPartners, Inc. Paste Product range, Superior, offers an alternative to running a scratch formula, which involves scaling a minimum of 5-7 ingredients. 

The Essential Baking Co. also now reaches a national audience with its Take & Bake line of artisan sourdough batards and baguettes, which get a notable 190-day ambient shelf life thanks to modified-atmosphere packaging (MAP).

To successfully bake products requires an astute blend of art and science. A fundamental ingredient in the baking process is the leavening agent. Leavening contributes essential sensory characteristics to bakery products.

One of the concepts often overlooked in the baking industry is that baking is really fundamental chemistry in action.

Industry suppliers offer new and updated leavening ingredients for the development of clean-label snacks and baked goods.

Ingredient suppliers and bakery clients are discovering new products and ways to use existing ingredients. 

LEVAIR Select leavening solution is a non-aluminum based alternative to traditional sodium aluminum phosphate.

Brand also expands dessert bar offerings with new Chocolate Pie Bar Mix.

The bakery snacks category overall experienced an increase in sales in 2021, the possible reason for that being that consumers are now returning to the office and want on-the-go snacks to keep them company at their desks. 

Bimbo Bakehouse recently introduced Entenmann’s Little Bites for foodservice distribution in both Chocolate Chip and Blueberry varieties.

Available in Mott's Apple and Hawaiian Punch Fruit Punch flavors, the new products can be found in select grocers nationwide next month.

The company creates plant-powered, gluten-free products rooted in Konjac—a fiber-rich Asian root plant that can be used to empower flour substitute applications.

The SiftAI Smart Table from Smart Vision Works, a KPM Analytics brand, promises better contaminant detection and product grading.  

The new laminator is said to offer a smaller footprint, flexibility, and easier sanitation and maintenance.

The item is suitable for snack and bakery manufacturing, as well as other production environments.

The idea of "better for you" encompasses much of what consumers desire today in many of their snacks and baked goods: clean label, non-GMO, natural and—at its core—solid nutrition to make those foods a healthy part of their daily diet.

Consumers are reading labels more, looking for products that are nutritious, with ingredients that are easy to understand and that work with their family's budget. While there's no official definition of "clean label," consumers and the snack and bakery industry have their own definition in mind.

Grains are fundamental ingredients in snacks and baked goods, providing function, flavor, texture and nutrition. Grains are classified as either whole grains or refined grains.

Consumers want to achieve better overall health and wellness, and adding more dietary protein and fiber helps. FDA defines dietary fiber as "certain naturally occurring fibers that are 'intrinsic and intact' in plants, and added isolated or synthetic non-digestible soluble and insoluble carbohydrates that FDA has determined have beneficial physiological effects to human health."

There's a reason why better-for-you is trending and "perfect-for-you" isn't. According to the August 2018 "U.S. Better for You Eating Trends" market report from Mintel, just 7 percent of consumers say they're strict with themselves to make sure their diet is as healthy as possible, and just three in 10 say they maintain a healthy diet most of the time.

While taste will remain a dominant factor for all food products, health, wellness and the nutritional value of the product is growing in importance. Several studies point to the fact that consumers are looking to achieve better overall wellness by selecting foods and ingredients that provide a functional health benefit.

Ingredion Incorporated has launched a dietary fiber in the U.S.—NOVELOSE 3490.

There was a time, not so long ago, when nutritional boundaries were more clear-cut. "Indulgent foods weren't healthy," says Mel Festejo, COO, American Key Food Products, Closter, NJ. "They either had a surfeit of nutrients that triggered health issues, or they contained ingredients whose names raised anxiety."

Grains are a fundamental ingredient in snack food and bakery products and an important food in consumer diets. In fact, based on the 2020 IFIC Food and Health Survey, consumers view fiber, whole grains, and protein from plants as the healthiest, and most-sought-after, nutrients. 

Consumer interest in foods that support holistic health and well-being is increasing. According to the 2020 IFIC Food and Health Survey, over half of consumers report that healthfulness has more of an impact today versus 10 years ago on their food and beverage purchase decisions.

The pandemic has heightened consumers' interest in health and well-being. According to the 2021 IFIC Food and Health Survey, 58 percent of respondents stated that healthfulness had an impact on their food and beverage decisions.

After the very successful introduction of the air-cooled Bantam-Series Post-Baking dryers two years ago, RFC is now offering the air-cooled design in a more powerful two-zone design

The iba trade fair in Munich will be opening its doors from September 15-20, 2018.

The latest generation of the MATADOR STORE Colour Edition instore baking oven will be presented at the iba with the new control system generation WP NAVIGO 3.

The newly developed thermal-oil-heated tunnel oven combines the constant radiant heat typical for thermal oils with true vertical turbulence for convective heat transfer, and can also work with different baked goods carriers even without conveyor belts.

The right oven is the heart of any baked snack or bakery facility, and suppliers continue to make improvements to their equipment. Aspects like smaller footprints, lower costs, more hygienic design, greater energy efficiency, better control, remote monitoring and an ability to handle a wider range of ingredients are all facing scrutiny.

The new TruBake HiCirc convection oven launched by Baker Perkins brings higher rates of convection, higher heat flux, and a broader range of product capability than its predecessors. 

Companies that make pans for the baking industry, whether for breads, baguettes, muffins, cookies, cakes, pies, etc., are focused on issues like larger sizes, a desire for energy and material efficiency, stick resistance, and the ability to help produce specialty and artisanal products.

Reading Bakery Systems has introduced a new multi-pass environmentally controlled proofer that accelerates dough development time in a reduced production footprint.