DALLAS — Registration for NEXUS, the baking industry’s newest event, is now open. This transformational event is set for Sept. 25-28, 2023, at the Omni Hotel in Dallas. Designed to be a central place to meet with colleagues, the event will also serve as a primary connection point for bakers and suppliers, an opportunity for professional development and a planned time for internal team meetings.
The four-day event, hosted by BEMA and the American Bakers Association (ABA), features something for everyone, from operations to human resources.
NEXUS is designed to strengthen existing relationships between bakers and suppliers while also creating new opportunities. Attendees can attend Spark Sessions, ABA’s NextGenBaker Leadership Forum at NEXUS, education sessions, and make use of the corporate meeting space.
“BEMA’s focus has always been on collaboration, relationship building and the business of baking,” said Jim Warren, BEMA chairman and VP of the Exact Mixing Division at Reading Bakery Systems. “It should come as no surprise that an event developed along with our friends at ABA would have the same focus. NEXUS. Fresh, different and unique. Now this is exciting.”
Spark sessions, which are a key differentiator of this event, are team-to-team meetings where a baker will be paired with a supplier to review challenges, discuss solutions, and identify opportunities for today and the future. Ahead of the event, baking company teams will complete a questionnaire to outline the specific challenges they are facing and the opportunities they would like to explore. NEXUS organizers will maintain these questionnaires in confidence; responses will not be shared with any other participants.
“ABA is proud to join forces with BEMA to power an original and affordable event that caters to all team leaders within a bakery, not just the executive suite,” said Cordia Harrington, ABA chair and CEO of Crown Bakeries. “During the team-to-team Spark sessions, bakers will learn about concepts and plans proposed by supplier partners in direct response to specific challenges our companies submit to meeting organizers ahead of time. It’s planned to be a ‘one stop shop.’”
Education sessions will address the most timely and relevant topics in the baking industry today, with speakers and panels of experts providing in in-depth look at topics such as workforce, sanitation, automation and trends.
ABA’s NextGenBaker Leadership Forum at NEXUS will feature highly curated programming for the baking industry’s rising leaders, focused on NextGenBaker’s four pillars of professional development, public policy engagement, relationship building and industry trends education.
Registrants for the forum will join ABA’s NextGenBaker co-chairs Liliana Economakis of Aspire Bakeries and Bradley Cain of Cain Food Industries as they lead this one-of-a-kind experience to cultivate leadership skills, build lifelong relationships with industry colleagues, and enrich attendee knowledge on critical business topics.
NEXUS will also place the focus squarely on industry collaboration with a corporate meeting space. Companies can use the area to meet privately with their team for up to an hour at a time to discuss business strategy.
In non-International Baking Industry Exposition years, NEXUS will be the baking industry’s essential fall gathering and the space companies can confidently send decision makers, influencers and future leaders.