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.

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.

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.

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.

Biscuit lovers have until midnight on April 22 to enter their favorite biscuit recipes in the International Biscuit Festival 2013 Biscuit Bake Off.

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

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.

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.

Combining heavy duty performance and energy savings technology, Vulcan has announced the launch of the CEF Countertop Electric Fryers, including the industry’s first ENERGY STAR certified countertop electric fryer.

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.

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

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.

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

Sized for little hands, Zbar Halloween Minis are available in a 20-ct chocolate chip flavor.

Three Wishes Cereal is launching granola bars for the first time, in three nostalgic flavors.

The caffeinated bar brand was one of six finalists in the store’s 2024 Next Big Thing competition.

The performance bar brand recently won a GNC competition that landed its products on the store’s shelves across the country.

Kellanova has rereleased a slew of seasonal products for autumn and Halloween.

Snack producers and bakeries can travel multiple avenues toward improved operational efficiency. Additional automation is a natural progression.

Advances in fleet management are being driven by routing and scheduling software linked to in-cab vehicle tracking equipment that streamlines the delivery process. These advances can help cut costs and better monitor delivery of products in a market where on-time delivery is crucial.

Thermal management is crucial to processing, storing and delivering several types of snacks and baked goods. The latest systems cover a wide range of functions, including chilling dough, cooling product after exiting the oven, and refrigerating or freezing finished product. Specialized cold storage facilities also are part of the mix.

The human-machine interface (HMI) is essential in an operator’s daily work, as it represents how he or she can use and control the equipment, via technology. These days, using an HMI is all about fostering an easy user experience.

Automation has begun to take over the world of sorting and ingredient handling among snack and bakery products, especially in the area of continuous batching and delivery systems.

Siemens recently announced a limited-time offer, effective until May 31, 2017. Under this program, users of any machine tool with SINUMERIK CNC onboard will receive a variety of additional services, plus training and a 10% discount on spare parts orders. 

In his 1954 compendium of writings, “Ideas and Opinions,” Albert Einstein said that “all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.” He put forth this scientific “fundamental truth” in connection to his predecessors Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, tying it to the origins of modern science.

Honeywell introduced its latest technology breakthroughs and innovative solutions for manufacturers, distribution centers, logistics providers, delivery firms and retailers to help drive efficiency across their supply chain operations.

Hardy Process Solutions announced a new version of the HI 6600 Modular Sensor Systems for PROFIBUS-DP control systems.

Thiele Technologies has announced that it soon will integrate Allen-Bradley control software on SYMACH Palletizers.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program, the domestic baking industry consumes an estimated $800 million worth of purchased fuels and electricity per year, as noted in its guide, "Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities for the Baking Industry" (Nov. 2016 update, available on www.energystar.gov).

The food industry is reveling in the digital age with the continual improvement of new technology. More snack producers and bakeries aspire toward alignment with Industry 4.0 ideals

This past year has been an exciting one for the baking industry, especially in terms of the progress made on revising the ANSI/ASB Z50.2 Bakery Equipment Sanitation Standard (formerly known as the “BISSC Standard”). Representatives from across the baking industry, including bakers, bakery engineers, bakery equipment manufacturers and academics have come together to give their input on updating this standard.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been on a roll lately. Its regulatory agenda is so full that advocates went to court to force timelines on the multitude of food-safety regulations required by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). 

A growing and consistent theme in the policy debates in which the American Bakers Association (ABA) is engaged is the importance of science to fortify our position.

Many of us are asking ourselves where the summer went, and it is difficult to find a good answer. I hope you had some deserved downtime with family at some point.

When 2015 began, most Washington, D.C. observers predicted more gridlock in Washington.

With the election of Donald Trump, and a slightly narrower Republican majority in Congress, Washington and the national punditocracy is both stunned and clamoring to find meaning in the election results.

With great trepidation that this column will become immediately obsolete or at least very dated in the short time from submitting it to publication, I want to address the whirlwind of regulatory relief announcements from the new Trump Administration.

The 2017 American Bakers Association (ABA) Convention featured our most thought-provoking and provocative program yet, centered around the enormous disruptions impacting the baking industry.

This past year on the Stronger Together tour, after the merger of the American Bakers Association (ABA) and the Biscuit & Cracker Manufacturers’ Association, we stopped at Kansas State University (KSU) to meet with the Bakery Science & Management students and participate in the Grain Science and Industry Advisory Council meeting.

During the tumultuous first year of the Trump Administration, the untold story has been the significant efforts to mitigate the numerous regulatory overreaches by the Obama Administration.

The 2020 election is over, but efforts to understand the impacts are just beginning.

The fly-in will connect baking industry leaders with elected officials in the nation’s capitol.

 
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 CAUTION...THIS PRODUCT ONLY APPROXIMATELY CONVEYS THE EXTENT OF
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 THE LATEST PUBLIC ADVISORY FROM THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER FOR
 THE PRECISE LATERAL EXTENT OF WIND WATCHES AND WARNINGS ALONG THE
 COAST...AS WELL AS THE APPROXIMATE LATERAL EXTENT OF SURGE WATCHES
 AND WARNINGS. THE PRECISE EXTENT OF SURGE WATCHES AND WARNINGS
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The essence of plumbing is its mechanical genius.