BakeryandSnack Chat Podcast: British Bakels celebrates 75 years in the baking industry with ‘crystal ball gaze’ 25 years into the future

17-Mar-2022 - Last updated on 17-Mar-2022 at 12:51 GMT

Baking Past, Present and Future was collated in collaboration with food futurist Lyndon Gee and looks back at the bakery ingredients specialists’ key achievements, along with landmark moments in the food industry’s history and what could lie ahead for the next seven decades.

Forward thinking is a key philosophy for the Bicester-based company, illustrated with a report that pinpoints the key trends expected to impact the future of the baking industry, in particular, novel ingredients, personalised nutrition, consumer behaviour, sustainability and technology.

However, the volatile environment in which we reside is changing principles, focuses and patterns faster than ever before, and without a doubt, globally, the food industry is teetering on a cusp of a major challenge.

Paul Morrow, chairman of British Bakels told BakeryandSnacks, that the industry, as a whole, needs to be alert to the difficulties expected in the coming year and need to start now gearing up to tackle it the best it can.

The upcoming highs and lows

“The coming 12 months are going to be very difficult in terms of cost and supply,” he said.

“We already know the forward price of sugar from the end of this year: it's going to be a lot more expensive and anything with vegetable oil, rapeseed oil [is] going to be very difficult.”

He added consumers, too, need to be braced for price increases.

“That might reduce the choice they may have to make a decision about buying a standard product, or a more added value product, and I suspect consumers will be squeezed and standard products will be bought more and added value less.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom, as the report maps out.

We chat to Morrow to find out more about the current landscape, its most immediate challenges, future trials that will have an impact, and the role that British Bakels has played in making the sector a vibrant market for the past 75 years.