Companies
Calif. Bakery Celebrates Anniversary With New Founders Breads
Los Angeles-based La Brea Bakery, an Aryzta company, is celebrating its 30th anniversary in business by launching a new bread line: La Brea Bakery Founders, in honor of Nancy Silverton and long-time baking partner Jonathan Davis. The two spent months experimenting with recipes and ingredients before finalizing the three breads that will debut this month. The new breads will be made using Silverton’s original sourdough starter and will incorporate contemporary ingredients and flavor profiles, basked using old-world techniques. The Founders portfolio includes Pain Levain, Sprouted Multigrain and Seed, and Country Wheat Batard. They will be sold nationwide at select grocery stores this fall.[Image Credit: © La Brea Bakery]
Launch Of German Bakery Will Begin Revitalization Of Wisc. City’s Downtown
A baker who learned his trade in Germany before emigrating to the U.S. in 1988 has opened the Okauchee Baker Meister, an authentic German bakery in Wisconsin. Michael Schuerstedt said Baker Meister will offer strudels, pretzels, kringles, coffee cakes, butter cookies, and cakes. The owner of the building that houses the new bakery said it will help kick off Okauchee’s downtown zoning district revitalization. Schuerstedt said Wisconsin’s strong German heritage and tradition drew him and his wife back after a stint in Illinois. [Image Credit: © teposu20 from Pixabay]
Consumers
Younger Consumers Love Their Baked Goods
Baked goods are a hit with younger consumers – the Millennial and Gen-Z crowd – the American Bakers Association reports. Nearly three-quarters of these consumers admitted to buying bread “within the past few days” of being surveyed; 60 percent said they’d purchased sweet goods in the past week. Half snack on crackers, tortillas and baked bars every week. Seventy percent associate bagels specifically with breakfast, bread with lunch, and crackers with snacking. Sweets and bars were the favorite baked snacks: 90 percent chose these categories as their favorites, followed closely by crackers (84). The data mirrors ABA and GenHQ’s recent discovery that Millennials and Gen Z consumers rank freshly baked, whole grains and natural ingredients as their top three purchasing factors. More than 1,800 Millennials participated in the online survey in February.[Image Credit: © pisandspices from Pixabay]
Other
U.S. Food Exporter Helps West African Farmers Get The Grain Fonio To Market
Brooklyn’s Yolélé Foods, which imports the sub-Saharan African grain fonio, is working with SOS Sahel to help farmers in the semi-arid region increase their productivity, improve the supply chain, and in turn enhance their livelihood. The farmers cultivate nutritious fonio – gluten-free, high in protein, iron, and fiber – on land that is sandy, rocky, and generally unfriendly to most crops, hard to process without good equipment, and saddled with a fragmented supply chain. It’s difficult if not impossible to bring substantial quantities to the marketplace. But Yolélé Foods and SOS Sahel have spearheaded the creation of the first industrial scale mill in Dakar (Senegal) to efficiently process the grain and boost supply. "People should expect to find it on store shelves within the year," says a spokesman for Yolélé Foods. [Image Credit: © Yolélé Foods Inc.]
Regulation
USDA Relaxes Obama-Era Rules On Whole Grains In School Lunches
Since 2014, U.S. schools have been required to serve only whole grain versions of food as part of the national school lunch program, an important source of free and reduced-price meals for millions of children. But the continuing rollback of Obama-era rules and regulations by the Trump administration has now touched that program, though it appears non-political. After months of complaints about flavor and costs, and lots of uneaten lunches, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the USDA was returning to an old standard: only half of grain foods like pasta and bread must be rich in whole grains. Cafeteria directors who lobbied for the change say they just wanted greater flexibility to serve foods like white bread – more processed and with less fiber – when whole grains don't work. In Vermont, the relaxed rule means white rice will be served with beans again. In Oregon, macaroni and cheese may return. The rollback addresses rules on grains, milk, and salt championed by former first lady Michelle Obama.[Image Credit: © Sornram Srithong from Pixabay]
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