KANSAS CITY, MO — The new year brought an additional obstacle for bread, bun and roll manufacturers when sesame joined the list of major food allergens under the Food Allergy Safety, Treatment, Education and Research (FASTER) Act.
For La Crosse, WI-based Kwik Trip, the impending impact of the FASTER Act caused the team to reevaluate its active SKUs. The company’s bratwurst bun was the only product manufactured with sesame at the time, and the team faced a decision: Include sesame on every bun produced or cut the SKU. Sales data dictated the decision to eliminate the product.
“In October 2021, we stopped making the brat buns with sesame seeds on them, and since then, we have been picking different pieces of equipment and thoroughly cleaning them,” said Eric Fonstad, bread and bun plant director of Kwik Trip, adding that the company’s QA team has continued to do environment testing to ensure the allergen is gone.
But no two bakeries approach allergens the same way. For instance, St. Louis-based Companion Baking, which serves an array of customers, has upped the ante on sanitation and cleaning processes for changeovers with sesame products.
“It doesn’t really have an impact on us other than it is a little bit more time consuming when we do changeovers from a product with sesame, where we didn’t have to be concerned about that before,” said Josh Allen, founder of Companion. “But it isn’t as if we’d been allergen-free anyway. We do some products with cheese and with nuts already, so it’ll fall in line with those items.”
Allergens are not the only consumer needs manufacturers must stay attuned to. As consumers resume on-the-go lifestyles post-pandemic, Jonathan Potts, regional sales manager of Companion Baking, noted its customer base needs products that last through deliveries.
“Post-COVID, the to-go food movement is not going anywhere,” he said. “It’s going to provide a 25 to 30 percent portion of foodservice revenue going forward. We need to have a product that holds up well in those formats.”
Potts also noted a shift in the retail business toward thaw-and-sell, largely in part to continuing labor challenges. Thaw-and-sell also reduces costs and waste while extending shelf life.
When it comes to R&D, bakers must ask the hard questions for the sake of innovation.
“The conversation needs to be ever-changing to what the struggles and pain points are in the environment right now,” Potts explained. “These conversations were a lot different four years ago, so it challenges us to ask more questions and really listen more to customers.”
This story has been adapted from the February | Q1 2023 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
