The Quest for Longer Shelf Life

Long shelf-life baked products have become increasingly sought-after by both retailers and customers in recent times. This trend is good news for bakers, also, as it translates in fewer returns and higher margins. In this context, ingredients and other products that can help prolong the bread’s life are always welcomed.

Many things have changed since the advent of the global COVID-19 pandemic but one issue that has impacted the bakery category specifically is the increasing demand for packaged baked goods. As a result, more producers are using functional ingredients to promote the shelf-life of baked goods in order to ensure optimum quality and freshness.

Asia Pacific Baker & Biscuit asked ingredients experts Beneo and DSM to share their expertise and take us through the various shelf-life extending solutions in their respective portfolios.

COVID-19 Catalyst

The demand for packaged baked goods has been driven in part by a desire from consumers for ‘hygienically wrapped’ products, as well as the move away from the physical bakery counters to online and pre-packed bakery treats. According to McKinsey and Co., throughout the pandemic, about 15% of consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK shopped for groceries on a website that they had never used before and among those consumers, more than 50% said they intended to continue shopping at their newfound site for at least some part of their grocery needs. “As a result of this change in shopper behavior, producers have been looking more closely at how to deliver the best quality products to the door of consumers, and many have been turning to functional ingredients to overcome some of the challenges this can present,” says Rudy Wouters, vice president BENEO Technology Center.

According to DSM, lunch on-the-go has transitioned to enjoying a sandwich at home for many consumers in recent months. At the same time, people are increasingly moving towards more wholesome and traditional food choices like bread – particularly whole wheat varieties with high fiber levels − that are easy to prepare at home. This has placed higher importance on the shelf life of baked goods, with manufacturers increasingly looking for solutions that help to deliver high-quality, consistently delicious baked goods, including bread, that stay soft and fresh for longer when they reach consumers’ cupboards. “This is a trend that we expect is here to stay even beyond the pandemic, as today’s conscious consumers are increasingly making more sustainable purchasing choices,” explains Kjeld van de Hoef, business director Baking, DSM.

Challenges and Solutions

DSM offers a broad portfolio of solutions – complemented by application expertise and end-to-end technical support – for helping large-scale bread improver companies and industrial bakers keep baked goods fresh for longer. For example, DSM’s BakeZyme® Fresh XL and BakeZyme® Master enzymes address freshness challenges by improving the resilience, freshness and quality of bakery products to maintain a soft crumb and mouthfeel. BakeZyme® Fresh XL increases moistness in a range of bread types, including sourdough, white and rye bread. Meanwhile, the premium BakeZyme® Master maltogenic amylase enzyme complements BakeZyme® Fresh XL by enhancing the sensory profile of and delaying staling in bread applications like ready-to-eat sandwiches (even when refrigerated), and improving the foldability of tortilla wraps. These benefits are important for enhancing consumer appeal and sustainability, particularly when producing tortilla wraps, which rely on excellent foldability.

“DSM’s BakeZyme® solutions allow producers to delay the onset of crumb firmness, the most widely used indicator of staling, to keep products fresh for longer and ultimately, reduce food waste. With 20 million slices of bread thrown away annually in the UK and Dutch households wasting 9kg of bread per year, this issue is rising fast to the top of the global sustainability agenda,” van de Hoef explains.

According to Beneo, a key issue when packaging iced baked goods, for example, is that the topping can become wet and sticky and run off, giving products an unappealing look. This is because standard icings are sucrose-based, mainly consisting of a mix of sugars with liquid or fat. These are often flavored or colored to create tempting toppings to entice consumers to purchase. However, there are technical challenges, both during and after the production of iced bakery products, that can create shelf-life and packaging challenges.

You can read the rest of this article in the Spring Issue of Asia Pacific Baker & Biscuit magazine, which you can access by clicking here.