Tortillas, always one of the most versatile breads, had extra mileage to accomplish this past year: consumers wanted better-for-you options for their tacos, flautas, and fajitas. They also wanted these to be easily accessible at their local grocery stores so that they could cook at home during the pandemic.

ADM has announced that the company has achieved net carbon neutral status for its U.S. flour milling operations.

The Grain Foods Foundation has announced the addition of Stephen Lindemann, PhD, to its Scientific Advisory Board. 

Bread is a universal language. Nearly every culture has historical roots in forming judicious combinations of water and grains, seeds, pulses, starches, and other substrates, often functionally lightened with some sort of leavening, and perhaps a dash of salt for flavor. It’s the quintessential expression of science, art, and sustenance.

More than 170 milling industry leaders and guests gathered in South Carolina for the North American Millers’ Association’s 2022 Spring Conference, which ended on April 12, 2022.

Total grain intake is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

Consumer attitudes and perceptions about health and nutrition issues are always changing. The United Soybean Board’s 19th annual Consumer Attitudes About Nutrition study looks at general nutrition and consumer responses to many of the major issues in the food industry today. The study can be helpful to food industry professionals making formulation, purchasing and marketing decisions.

The woman-founded brand features premium ingredients and upcycled flour.

On Sept. 26, the two owners of Jensen Farms, were arrested for shipping adulterated food in 2011. The charge was shipping contaminated cantaloupe, which resulted in the death of 33 people and sickened 147 people. The two brothers were arrested on misdemeanor charges of introducing adulterated food into commerce. 

Product recalls in bakery and snack categories have remained consistent over the years, with undeclared allergens the primary cause. These costly recalls are preventable!

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Cold-chain management—an essential aspect of many snack and bakery operations today—has entered a brave new world characterized by sophisticated temperature monitoring and tracking technology connected by the Internet of Things (IoT).

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

Last month, I had the opportunity to offer testimony in support of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to modestly scale back the amount of ethanol required to be produced under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). 

Multiple prevailing trends at the consumer and regulatory levels will factor into the business concerns of the bakery industry over the coming year. These include product-development dynamics like non-GMO, nutritional labeling, transparency and food safety—all of which have the potential to positively influence overall shopper perceptions related to bread and the other baked goods that play a part of dietary patterns.

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.

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.

As of the last regulatory update from the American Bakers Association (ABA), we were coming out of a governmental shutdown. Now, the clock is ticking as we stare down the August recess in Congress and feel continued residual delays from that shutdown.

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

 
 000
 WTNT83 KNHC 070848
 TCVAT3
 
 RAFAEL WATCH/WARNING ADVISORY NUMBER 15
 NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL     AL182024
 348 AM EST THU NOV 7 2024
 
 .HURRICANE RAFAEL
 
 CAUTION...THIS PRODUCT ONLY APPROXIMATELY CONVEYS THE EXTENT OF
 TROPICAL CYCLONE WIND AND SURGE WATCHES AND WARNINGS. PLEASE SEE
 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
 CAN BE FOUND IN THE NWS NATIONAL DIGITAL FORECAST DATABASE HAZARD
 GRIDS.
 
 FLZ077-078-071000-
 /O.CAN.KNHC.TR.W.1018.000000T0000Z-000000T0000Z/
 348 AM EST THU NOV 7 2024
 
 $$
 
 ATTN...WFO...KEY...
 

 
 000
 WTPZ84 KNHC 210907
 TCVEP4
 
 HILARY WATCH/WARNING ADVISORY NUMBER 20
 NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL     EP092023
 207 AM PDT MON AUG 21 2023
 
 .POST-TROPICAL CYCLONE HILARY
 
 CAUTION...THIS PRODUCT ONLY APPROXIMATELY CONVEYS THE EXTENT OF
 TROPICAL CYCLONE WIND AND SURGE WATCHES AND WARNINGS. PLEASE SEE
 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
 CAN BE FOUND IN THE NWS NATIONAL DIGITAL FORECAST DATABASE HAZARD
 GRIDS.
 
 CAZ043-048-050-055>058-060>062-065-087-088-358-362-366>383-548-552-
 554-211015-
 /O.CAN.KNHC.TR.W.2009.000000T0000Z-000000T0000Z/
 207 AM PDT MON AUG 21 2023
 
 $$
 
 ATTN...WFO...LOX...SGX...
 

The ‘Roaring Twenties’ were a time when all participants had their act together.

One of the legacies of the old Trade Extension Bureau that remains alive today was its effort to standardize industry vocabulary.

Every year on March 11, the international plumbing community comes together to celebrate World Plumbing Day. The day aims to spread awareness of the importance of plumbing and plumbers in protecting public health and improving access to clean water and sanitation facilities. 

Contractors are a mobile breed — constantly on the move, from job to job. With so much shuffling around, there is more opportunity for human error — tools ending up on the wrong jobsite on the wrong day. When you have inventory tied up across different jobs, in the back of a work truck or van, or in a warehouse on a high shelf that’s rarely dusted, it’s easy for mistakes to be made.

The acquisition strengthens Anvil International’s fire protection product package.

Eighty-two percent of respondents use digital tools daily to help streamline training and development programs. The majority of respondents within this group recognize the diverse benefits that digital tools offer the skilled trades industry.

Leave behinds are low-cost items that you give to customers to promote your brand following service calls or that you give away during home shows and other events. Oftentimes, plumbers stumble with leave behinds because they select things they might like instead of what the customer values. Here are 17 great leave behinds that will build brand recall with consumers.

The future for young women in this industry is now as bright as anyone wants it to be. If a young woman wants to work her way all the way up to the C-suite, the opportunities are there, and that is so exciting to see.

“I don’t think people care that I’m young, or female. They care about what I know.”
Those words, spoken by Baylie Frost, a virtual design and construction (VDC) lead at Harvey’s Plumbing & Heating in Bozeman, Montana, must be music to the ears of an industry that is seeking to attract more talented young people to its ranks.

John Wallace, owner of Atlanta-based JM Wallace Plumbing, has been offering leak detection solutions since 2007, but it’s only recently during the last few years where he’s really seen the technology take off.

Plumbing & Mechanical Chief Editor Nicole Krawcke spoke with Chad Salge, vice president of virtual design and engineering at The Brandt Companies about its digital transformation journey.

ServiceTitan made waves earlier this year when it announced new cutting-edge AI solutions, allowing its customers to automate, predict and optimize across their businesses during Pantheon 2023.

On Feb. 1, NIBCO announced it acquired Matco-Norca and its subsidiary SVF Flow Controls.
NIBCO Chairman Rex Martin stated, “This acquisition supports our strategic long-range goal of growth through acquisition, expanding our market reach and providing customers with access to a broader portfolio of products.This is an extraordinary time in NIBCO’s evolving history.”

PM Engineer Chief Editor Nicole Krawcke had the chance to speak with several key industry stakeholders about trends and technological developments in the market, including: Greg Nahrgang, vice president, technical services and product development, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry; Adam Botts, product manager for Viega; and Steven Dolejsi, applications engineering manager, IPEX.