All Things Frozen: Bakery World Trends

In this fast-paced world we have, there never seems to be enough time. Sayings like ‘life is too short to stuff a mushroom’ or as actress Kristin Scott Thomas says ‘life’s too short to eat low-fat everything’ are symptomatic of the pressures we face.

And this is partly why we like this convenience-directed life we lead. The world of bakery has gone a long way down the avenue of convenience to give us things like good-smelling baked loaves of bread, croissant, brioche, burger buns or snacks – in almost an instant.

That is what we have grown to expect from our modern way of life and it’s a growing global trend.

David Sprinkle, research director for Packaged Facts in the US, says the convenience of prepare-at-home foods of all types is the growth market. “Frozen foods of all kinds have been challenged in recent years as a result of the convergence of several trends, especially, but not exclusively, a growing demand for fresh products or, at least, fresher products in refrigerated rather than frozen form,” he said.

A walk down almost any supermarket refrigerated aisle will reveal an array of par-baked or bake-off products, like garlic breads, sausage rolls, ciabattas and the like which, once put in the oven for a short time, are ready to eat.

As we know, most of these are industrially baked to about 80% of the process or baked up to the proofing stage before being frozen.

Way back in the old days, frozen foods were packed with preservatives and the quality was not always up to scratch. But these have moved on.

An example comes from Lantmännen Unibake and Lantmännen R&D which recently joined forces with research institutes to better understand the role of ice crystals in frozen croissants.

Roel Van der Meulen, R&D Manager at Lantmännen Unibake, said: “During frozen storage, biochemical reactions continue to occur having an impact on the quality of the final product once taken out of the freezer.

“One of the most critical processes is the water mobility and the ice crystal growth, which takes place from the moment the products are frozen on our production lines. Therefore, it is imperative to know what exactly happens and, even more importantly, be able to control the process.”

The result? “We can optimize the quality of our products and thus deliver fantastic bake-off croissants that taste as if they were made at the point of sale,” added Van der Meulen.

The snacking trends is growing, too, and frozen bakery products are to the fore here.

Datamonitor Consumer’s 2014 consumer survey found that nearly one-third of consumers tend to snack at the workplace when they snack outside of mealtimes.

And that can be anywhere depending on what hour it is. Datamonitor reported that 55% of those surveyed agreed that they snack between lunch and dinner while 28% do so between breakfast and lunch.

This where the modern microwave now comes into play. Portable frozen offerings now include various twists on the conventional sausage, egg and cheese biscuit as well as more gourmet varieties of paninis that are microwaved in four to seven minutes — at the most.

In many offices, workers now microwave their sandwiches for a hot, quick meal instead of brown-bagging a cold sandwich.

Packaging innovations, specifically the receptor that heats up the products, have helped the quality of bread and given bakers a whole new opportunity.

We want our baked food or snack to be tasty and ready in an instant. After all, life is too short to wait.