Waste is costly for bakeries. Like plenty of other enterprises, they wish to minimise their overheads while maximising their profits.   

At the same time, bakeries need to meet their customers’ expectations and be prepared to keep testing their products and processes to achieve consistency of quality.   

Basically, waste is an ever-present risk. After all, bakeries are dealing with food ingredients, which can be changeable. But there are ways in which bakeries can reduce their waste, saving money on ingredients they use and the cost of waste disposal.  

1. Plan for Waste Reduction   

There’s simply no substitute for good planning. This applies to food and bread waste reduction as much as it does other, vital aspects of baking.   

Bakeries will find plenty of support in tackling food waste. The app Too Good To Go conducted research that found bakery employees were very much concerned with food waste.

The top reason for waste in food production is the following of strict health and safety guidelines. One is to focus on the customer and enable and encourage them to buy unsold food at eateries at the end of service. Bakeries have partnered with several well-known food outlets to do this.   

Customers can find out where to buy this discounted food via the Too Good To Go app.  

2. Form Mutually Supportive Partnerships   

The Food Waste Reduction Roadmap is an industry-wide initiative that aims to support the UN Sustainable Development goal of halving global food waste.   

Various large organisations such as Waitrose and Allied Bakeries have signed up to the roadmap.   

The initiative provides support and a practical toolkit for businesses wishing to reduce their food waste.   

By signing up to this roadmap, bakeries can take advantage of advice and support to take targeted action to reduce their operational waste. It helps them to work with their own supply chains and customers to reduce food waste too.   

The roadmap shows them how to measure and report food surplus and waste data confidently and accurately.   

It also encourages co-operation throughout whole supply chains, so that businesses and organisations can take joint action to reduce food waste.   

Basically, bakeries don’t have to bear the burden or take the initiative alone.   

3. Respond Rapidly to Sales Patterns  

Things as simple and inevitable as changes in the weather can influence customer behaviour and choice. 

 Bakeries should put systems in place that allow them a greater degree of flexibility when it comes to the production of different items.   

Observing and analysing sales patterns will help them with planning their bakes, including variations in quantity and distribution.   

This information should be closely connected to baking schedules, enabling bakeries for more effective advance planning.   

Consumers are looking for various fundamental characteristics in bread and other baked goods, including:   

  • Colour 

  • Shape 

  • Crust 

  • Softness. 

These are all critical parameters in baking production. Therefore, full visibility of production and the means to adjust it, are vital in fulfilling demand and reducing waste.   

4. Have Full Visibility of Baking Production  

To respond to sales patterns and plan their production better, bakeries must monitor their production processes and have full visibility of the different stages involved.   

Here, technology can be an enormous help. The C-Cell baking quality analyser provides an objective analysis of the quality of baked goods.   

This goes beyond traditional, sensory analysis and offers instead solid data and in-depth analysis based on precise, digital image-capture technology.   

By benchmarking and optimising their processes, based on this solid data, bakeries can ensure consistency in production.   

Consistency helps reduce waste because it ensures baking quality, ensuring bakeries continue to meet high consumer standards.   

Using C-Cell, bakeries can keep track of any potential processing issues and deal with them in a timely fashion that helps reduce the risk of waste.   

5. Test and Score Bakes  

C-Cell incorporates bread-scoring metrics into its automated baking quality analysis.  

By adopting this methodology, bakeries can measure the characteristics of bakes and see what works, or what requires improvement.   

This supports test baking, which is essential, in the long term, for reducing waste. By repeating processes, bakeries can refine them, adjusting where necessary to optimise product quality.   

Testing, measuring and scoring bakes helps maintain rigid quality control standards but also allows bakeries to be more adaptable and to shift, where necessary, to meet changing markets and customer expectations.   

There is a complex balancing act here, between consistency and innovation and in meeting demand as accurately as possible.   

C-Cell provides the technical support and stability for bakeries to achieve this ideal balance and, in doing so, reduce their waste.   

For more information about the C-Cell Baking Analyser, please contact us