How Can Bakery Manufacturers Add Value to Their Product Lines?

In a sector like bakery where margins can be tight and competition intense, businesses need to be actively looking for ways to gain an edge at all times. The tendency for consumer demand to fluctuate presents manufacturers of baked goods with both a headache and an opportunity. If you can successfully differentiate your business from the competition with new and innovative offerings, it’s possible to capture considerable new market share.

But often, the most effective strategy is to focus on how best to maximize your existing product lines. This can be in the form of remarketing existing products to suit a new opportunity, or diversifying already-successful product ranges to meet new niches. These strategies can unlock a real opportunity to upsell what you already have, often with little additional outlay. 

Here are some of the most important areas for bakery businesses like yours to add further value to your product lines.

Holiday and Seasonal Tie-Ins

Bakery is perhaps the sector in the food industry that can capitalize most successfully on the holiday seasons—given consumers’ desire to mark these occasions with sweet treats. It’s therefore vital that bakery manufacturers are offering products that tie into every holiday in order to maximize the benefits of each one.

Many brands have established seasonal favorites that are rolled out around Christmas and Easter, but they can still cater to all the other holidays without creating brand new products for each one. For other holidays like Valentine’s Day, Halloween and the 4th of July, it’s often far more cost-effective to upsell a regular product that is sold year-round.

For instance, this could take the form of repackaging the product with a holiday-specific design, and altering portion sizes (consumers are more likely to buy baked goods for sharing purposes in the holidays). Not only does this help your brand temporarily reposition the product to drive greater sales in the lead-up to a holiday, it may also present the opportunity to add a premium when selling to retail.

Thinking along seasonal lines can also prove fruitful for brands. For instance, prioritizing sales of pumpkin spice-flavored products in the fall or gingerbread-flavored products during winter. Again, rolling out new product lines to capture seasonal consumer demand is one way to achieve this, but giving existing products with these flavors a seasonal rebrand can also be an effective way to add value.

Increase the Emphasis on Indulgence

With increased focus on healthier options across the food and beverage industry, it’s important to keep sight of the fact that most consumers buy bakery products as an indulgent treat. Research suggests that 70% of people prefer cakes or pastries that let them indulge themselves. With this in mind, you can benefit from reinforcing the indulgent nature of your offerings and, if appropriate, the fact that they are premium products. 

Similarly to holiday season products, rethinking packaging to give products a more premium feel can be highly effective. In particular, the language used should highlight the product’s flavor profiles. Experimenting with smaller portion sizes is also a strategy being employed by many brands, as they look to capture shoppers looking for indulgence in moderation. 

Companies across the food and beverage industry are looking to embrace “premiumization” in a bid to win over a new generation of more demanding consumers. Your bakery brand should be getting ahead of the game in this regard—exploring lines with different flavor combinations, colors and textures. But often, premiumization can be achieved with existing products simply by giving greater thought to the aspects that should be highlighted most.

Healthier and “Free-From” Options

On the other hand, it is important that you do not neglect your health-focused offerings, given the shift towards health and wellness-oriented foods is one of the key trends in the wider food and beverage industry. “Free from” products are also particularly appealing to consumers with allergies, or those looking to avoid a particular ingredient for health reasons.

One of the quicker and less disruptive ways to grow your health-focused product range is to create lower-calorie or free from versions of established favorites. While new recipes will still have to be formulated, this can be done much more efficiently than creating a new product from scratch, if you have the right processes and technology. 

Consumers shopping for healthy treats and consumers shopping for indulgence aren’t necessarily different people—diversifying your product range is all about making sure your brand is set up to serve the shifting needs of customers as and when they change.

Your bakery business needs to explore every possible avenue for adding value to its existing product ranges. But turning these ideas into reality requires the right tools and organization to ensure an efficient process that will improve the overall profitability of your products. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions that are tailored to the food and beverage industry can support these efforts greatly. They make it easier to incorporate new products and strategies, and help organize production schedules more effectively ahead of seasonal holidays.

Our industry-specific food and beverage solution, Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, helps bakery companies like you find the best recipes and combinations for success—whether this involves expanding a particular line, experimenting with new portion sizes or incorporating new packaging ideas. Contact our team of food and bevearage industry experts to find out more.