Welcome to Season 7 of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, speaks with Richard Charpentier, CMB, and CEO of consulting company Baking Innovation. Their conversation explores the technical aspects of creating high-quality, premium baked goods on a commercial scale. Sponsored by Puratos’ Sunset Glaze.

In this episode, Spencer and Charpentier unpack the key ingredient and formulating considerations for premium product development.

Learn more about this season here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.

Joanie Spencer: Hi, Richard. Thanks for joining me again this week.

Richard Charpentier: Hey, Joanie. Great to be here.

Spencer: I’m excited about this episode because I feel like this is something that you feel pretty strongly about, and that is choosing the right ingredients.

Charpentier: Oh, yeah. Quality starts with the ingredients, I do agree.

Spencer: Right, and that’s actually my first question: A defining characteristic of a premium product is the ingredients, but what exactly does that mean?

Charpentier: It’s a perfect question to start off the podcast. For those who enjoy partaking in wine and being French, it sort of was born. But to me, it’s just as with wine, you do have different quality of wine and different price points. It’s similar to baking, you know, what ingredients do they use for wine? They will use grapes, and the fermentation process would differentiate the quality.

I think baking is the same thing. I do. Look at grapes from winemaking, the wheat and grains we use will vary greatly, depending on the region, climate, soils in which they’re grown. So, a baker could say, “Hey, I can bring different, locally grown grains, and we’re not talking 100%, but bring some to create something unique, to create a product with a superior quality compared to the competition.”

I was reading a book — I do a lot of research into all traditions of baking and dating back to the 17th century — there was an interesting article written in 1764 where they were complaining about the lack of quality. Back then, they used to do some testing to see what it was, and they realized that once you got just one ingredient, like one flour, and you made bread from locally, it was okay. But if you take from four different regions, you take the lowest quality flour and you blend it together, then you get a superior product.

I’m saying that to show that sometimes we tend to look at especially the number one ingredient when we’re talking about baking is flour. What do we do with the flour to ensure we get the best product? And that’s why I brought the wine analogy. That’s the way good quality wine starts. It starts with good quality grapes. So here, we tend to say, “As long as I have a flour, I’m good to go.” I do agree you can make a good quality product, but when you try to differentiate yourself and make premium and higher quality, I think it has to go a step further, and choosing the ingredients and looking at what the ingredients can affect your product, that’s where it’s important.

Then, you have to think as a baker, too, when choosing the right ingredients, are you storing them well, and to start thinking of ingredients as a part of the process and not just as a cost. That’s what I deal with with my customers. I agree cost is huge, but sometimes, if you pay a little more, what kind of premium can you sell it with, and what’s the bottom line for you? Just keep on doing. But  it takes for everybody to get involved to think about changes.

Spencer: Is it safe to assume, and this is this is my assumption, that upscaling a product requires more than just upscaling an ingredient or two? You have to go back to the beginning and really think about the R&D of it and not just “We’re going to make this premium by changing the flour or changing the fat.” Is that true?

Charpentier: Yeah, bringing anything new for an operation, especially as it is in most commercial bakeries today, it would require R&D and operations to really learn how to use the new ingredients. Because what we bakers want to do when we make products, we want to make sure we run without any problems. We have all the products at the end of the line in packaging and ready to be shipped out to our customers. If you bring new ingredients — for example, I’ve done a lot of work in high protein bread and played with hemp, chia, quinoa and amaranth — once you add a certain portion of those grains into your baking to make it more premium or make a protein claim, those ingredients are not just wheat flour. They don’t work the same way, they don’t absorb the same way, they don’t process the same way. A lot of them are non-gluten ingredients; therefore, it takes a little more care and love and dedication to bring those products in order to do them well.

That’s the big difference where you would require R&D’s involvement to test and ensure the good use of it. In R&D, we did thorough testing, where we would look at what happens to the product because bakeries get affected by time, temperature and the weather. We’ll try to mimic as best different conditions that we would know how that product will react. Because the worst is, as bakers, especially on a commercial level, when they say “All right, it works.” Then you start implementing the product, and you’re seeing different changes. Therefore, the inconsistency will create the product to no longer be high quality or premium, and that’s why it’s very crucial to have every hand on deck to ensure its success.

Spencer: Right? That’s kind of exactly what I was thinking, is that one ingredient change could impact the chemistry of the product, right?

Charpentier: A hundred percent. That’s why bakers are trying to stay within their own specs. But all ingredients, same as wine and grapes, they’re objected to the weather, to the crop changes to anything. So, their ingredients will get affected by the weather, by the pricing, and therefore, bakers constantly have to adjust. And that is crucial, especially today, as we’re talking about shelf life and waste. How do we ensure we’re not creating more problems? And that’s why, as you said, we have to ensure that if you get to the premium ingredients, ensure that it works well for your line, and get people involved and get maybe third parties or outside suppliers or consultants to come and help you out.

Spencer: Okay, so I’m thinking about how much more critical it is to consider waste when you’re making a premium product and using those higher quality ingredients. The word “premium” often translates to the word “expensive” not only for the consumer, but also the baker. Is that a myth? Or is that the truth and there are just caveats that come with it that you have to make sure you consider?

Charpentier: That’s a great point. I think it’s important to remember that “expensive” as we talked about, doesn’t necessarily mean “premium.” I think a premium product may cost more due to the higher quality ingredients and craftsmanship involved in the creation and the manufacturing. But I think the value of the product should still be apparent to the end consumers because at the end of the day, manufacturers can make a premium product, but the success of premium is going to be the consumer saying, “That’s premium to me.” And that’s where I think it takes a little thinking.

And, I think in fact, many consumers, we talked about the Gen Z, they’re willing to pay more for a premium product because they do value the quality and experience it provides or the story it gives. So, while there may be higher costs associated with a premium product, I think it’s important to focus on the real value that the product provides to the customers rather than just the price tag.

One of my analogies is: everybody’s driving a car, we all know that when you have certain cars, you have to put premium gasoline, because we know it’s better for the car. So therefore, we perceive that we’ll pay the extra $0.50, $0.60, sometimes $1 more for the gasoline because we know it’s better for the car. And, I think personally, the same is true for premium products. If your product is of quality and consistency, then premium at that point is no longer expensive.

Spencer: That’s a really good point. And it does sort of come down to price versus value, right?

Charpentier: Yeah, I think the value that is perceived. You have a certain place where people will go and line up. At Laduree, I went with my kids last time I was in Paris, you get little macaroons for $20, and you’re like, “What?” but everybody’s happy; therefore, the value is no longer the price. You initially think of the price when you wait in line, and you pay, but I think we have to re-educate people, and we’re willing to do it. And that’s why I use the example of gas. We don’t think twice when you have a nice car and then you have to get premium gasoline. Nobody’s thinking twice. They’ll be like, “Oh, wow. Went up again.” But you’re not going to go back for the cheaper one.

Spencer: Exactly. Okay, so I want to go back to that first episode. We kind of talked about it last week, too, just the difference between artisan and premium, and that you can have a premium product without it being artisan. But for commercial bakers who are manufacturing artisan products, what do they need to be thinking about to elevate the quality of their commercially produced artisan products? What are the key considerations beyond just changing the ingredient list?

Charpentier: Great, great, great point. If a baker says, “I want to get more premium and artisan baker; I want to be more premium; I want to elevate the overall value of the quality perceived by the customers,” my approach to it is fermentation. Fermentation can do wonders for you. Again, going back to what we talked about in previous weeks on the beer manufacturers. Why are you willing to pay $12 at a restaurant for craft beer? Because it’s made with chocolate malt or it’s a fancy name? I think the artesian bakers can do the same.

In my work with Baking Innovation, I have done a lot of work on sourdough fermentation, and what I’ve found that is how to elevate by doing a proper fermentation bread with wild yeast, as what we call natural yeast, nothing added, I’m getting a shelf life of two weeks. So that’s what I would say, for artisans to use the power of fermentation to your advantage. Again, it’s easier said than done because it takes a program, and then you’re not changing the ingredients. But you’re using the current ingredients you have, and you’re maximizing the efficiency or the benefits that ingredient has by working it differently. So that means it’s really changing, and hopefully people will be like, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”

It’s really rethinking what you do with the product versus just trying to get the product out. It’s almost like working out and sometimes you have a coach saying, “No, work out this way,” and you start seeing different results. And that would be, to me, more of a “Sit down; let’s discuss ways,” but I do think that fermentation, and then as we hear about gut health and people more conscious about eating better and a microbiome, there’s a health halo around sourdough fermentation. I would definitely recommend for bakers, which I’ve done here locally, to not change everything but try to do small sourdough production. And some people have been successful doing that.

Spencer: I think one sort of standard setter in that regard, at least in my opinion, is La Brea Bakery from Aspire Bakeries. You know, they started out as a small artisan bakery in L.A. and now they are a major manufacturer of sourdough. And they really focused on maintaining that fermentation time. I know there are other mid-size bakeries. One was a guest in our previous season of Troubleshooting Innovation, and that’s Chabaso Bakery up in Connecticut. And they’re the same way. They do not stray from their quality standards and the time that it takes to make artisan bread but doing it at scale. It can be done, but like we talked about in that first episode, it’s commitment.

Charpentier: It’s commitment, and what I’ve learned is, in the industry and for those listening, it’s that quality and consistency sells. You can have the best marketing team and the best packaging and the best whatever, but quality and consistency no matter what you do, and you will see at the retail level, you see the trends, people will go back. Once they know it’s worth it, price is no longer an issue.

Spencer: Absolutely. Do you think that there are particular products that can more easily lend themselves to increasing quality or garnering a higher price point? And we kind of talked about that a little bit last week, but I guess I’m asking it today from a formulating standpoint. Are there products that you can tinker with the formula or tinker with the ingredient list to increase the quality? Are there certain products that lend themselves to more trial and error with R&D for increasing the quality?

Charpentier: The products that tend to lend themselves for increasing quality or garnering a higher price point as you mentioned, I think anything within … we talked about the sweet goods. Sweet goods are a little easier to put on a cake and say, “Our cake is fantastic. But now we’re going to take a chocolate ganache or take a Tahitian vanilla and add other things around it to increase the quality of the product.” And not only the name, but as a consumer, if you bite into it, you’ll be like, “Wow, this is amazing.”

You want to drive the customers or the people experiencing your product into the product where now they’re thinking, “I’m getting a good value; I’m getting an experience.” It will take some R&D ingredients. But for example, if you use a regular granulated sugar, and you say, “You know what? I’m going to improve. There’s a local honey producer, and I’m going to start using honey.” Well, honey comes as a more expensive item, more difficult to handle. How do you keep your honey to prevent crystallizing or getting solid?

So, there’s a lot of things where R&D, as you go there, will have to get involved in helping out along the way. It’s not just as easy as to say, “We’ll put in the ingredients, it’ll be better.” But as you have more ingredients … I’ve read some data as a side note that based on USDA, 30% to 40% of the food we manufacture ends up in the landfill. As you go with premium, you might have to think about minimizing waste and how we approach the distribution.

Spencer: Definitely. And I mean, when you’re upscaling to premium shelf life, and we talked about it a little bit, sometimes shelf life can come into play.

Charpentier: I’ve worked a lot on shelf life and extended shelf life in my career. I was fortunate enough to do that. But we were able to, at certain points, still have premium and have the proper shelf life. It would require tons of episodes of podcasting to tell it, not just in one podcast. But as you upscale, just understand that if you look at your current returns or look at your current shelf life, what are the issues with shelf life?

Look at your current production, because now if you just stick ingredients and change the quality of ingredients, if you already have flaws within your production line, that means bringing premium ingredients, your waste will go up; and therefore, it would not be sustainable. And maybe the channels, as we said, the foodservice versus the retail, how do you push these new products and how can you ensure that consumers getting it after the distribution will get the same experience as it was designed or formulated to be?

Spencer: Okay. So, this next question, after all of our conversations so far, what are the challenges and benefits with each in terms of either adding a high-quality ingredient to an existing formula, or removing or swapping an ingredient?

In a previous episode, you talked about just adding high-quality chocolate chips to a cake versus swapping out the butter for a higher quality imported butter for a laminated baked good or adding an egg wash. There’s adding things like an egg wash or adding things like chocolate chips, and then there’s substituting or replacing an ingredient for a higher-quality ingredient. What are the benefits and challenges that come with each of those strategies?

Charpentier: Great, great, great question. Let’s talk about the benefits. Benefits, as we’ve been talking about over the last few weeks, benefits are, “Are you upscaling your ingredient list?” If you go from a cake, and it says you’re using chocolate chips and now you’re going with real chocolate, chocolate chip is a is a compound. And if you go with real chocolate, then handling real chocolate is a challenge because it might melt a different point. Does it work within your current process? So those are the challenges coming in. With real chocolate, can you store your real chocolate? Do you have enough refrigerated space to do it?

Similar to butter. A lot of bakers have gone to ingredients, as you say, they’re trying to upscale say, “Hey, I’m going to do my cakes with butter.” Butter is excellent, but the shelf stability of the ingredients you’re bringing in has to be carefully checked. Now that we’re dealing with butter, you can’t just sit your butter in your bakery. As we all know, bakeries tend to be very hot, and what happens if you put butter as you’ve done it in the summertime in your kitchen? It starts melting. You’re going to have to have more guidelines and more controls around bringing premium ingredients in the case of butter.

But let’s say you’re saying, “I want to bring a premium French flour to the US and make the best baguette I can.” It’s doable, but you have to ensure that your supply chain is proper. So, ensure the supply of whatever you’re going with, ensure that if it’s not that, find a secondary supplier, one or two would be my recommendation, at least two, and ensure that you’re following the vendor or the suppliers directions on how to handle their products properly because every product — and bakers listening will know — will say, “Keep within a room between whatever degree to x degree. “Rotate your products differently. It’s going to require a little more thorough thinking and involvement than just saying, “All right, this is an ingredient, we get it, we put it into mixer.”

Spencer: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so I have one more question for you today, and it’s another sort of myth-busting question for me. There are a lot of assumptions that come with the term “clean label.” And I guess by assumptions, I’m saying consumer assumptions. When they hear things are clean label or have a short ingredient list, they automatically assume that means that it’s a higher quality.

If you’re specifically thinking of a commercially produced baked good, is there truth to that? Because it seems like that is an oversimplification. It seems like there’s got to be more to it than just, “Simplifying the label makes it premium.” What are your thoughts on that?

Charpentier: I think clean label — again, it’s a word, it’s almost like natural — there’s no true definition from the FDA that says, “This is what clean label is all about, and this is how you have to do clean label” We’re seeing retailers like Whole Foods who will have a list of what’s considered for the clean label. So, I think clean label is based on the brand, based on the manufacturer or based on the product being made. And it’s a separation. It could be a clean label item, but is this a premium product? And I think there’s a wall between both of them. You could make a clean label product, but it’s not a premium item. And how do you how do you differentiate that? I think the myth is, yeah, there’s a lot of confusion where people will say, “Oh, we removed three ingredients and now it’s clean label, so therefore, we can dictate a premium price.” I think it’s a myth. And I think consumers will be the one dictating what’s premium versus just clean label.

Spencer: Okay, that’s what I was thinking, too, so thanks for validating my thoughts. Okay, Richard, those are all my questions for today’s episode. Thank you so much for diving into some of the things that bakers really need to consider when they’re choosing ingredients for a high-quality premium formula. This was really an interesting conversation.

Next week, we’re going to take a look at taste and texture and really focus on what it takes to upgrade taste and texture for premium baked goods. So, I’m excited to get into that with you. And so, for today, I will just say thank you again, and I look forward to visiting with you next week.

Charpentier: Thank you. Always a pleasure talking to you, Joanie, and talk to you next week. Thank you.