SF-June-20

W hile the food industry across the UK has experienced rapid change as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak, there have been a few breakthrough sectors –most notably the home baking industry. Sales have risen as a result of both consumers having difficulties sourcing their specialityfoodmagazine.com 13 usual pre-baked loaves and having more time at home, leading to more scratch-cooking and an increased interest in home baking; from simple loaves of bread (the most searched- for recipe, over and above the ubiquitous banana bread, according to digital marketing agency Impression) to more time consuming, gourmet endeavours such as sourdough and extravagant bakes. Consumers’ gourmet creativity has even extended to using homemade focaccia as a canvas for edible meadow scenes (don’t believe us? Check out #focacciagarden on Instagram). While such creations may be the preserve of confident home bakers, that’s not to say that beginners to home baking have been left out in the cold. Baking kits have been a roaring success over the past couple of months, as Nikki Castley, buyer at Cress Co explains: “Withmost of the country sheltering at home, scratch cooking and home baking is seeing another huge surge in popularity. The demand for flour has been unprecedented as many of the mills struggle to keep up with demand and yeast has sold out nearly everywhere, so many have switched over to baking kits, which include all those ingredients that are proving difficult to buy.” Not only that, but they are “the perfect way of getting kids into the kitchen and introduced to baking, kits are simple and easy to use with usually a foolproof result that’s bound to pass the ‘Hollywood’ test!” Already well-known for their popular meringue range, Flower & White were able to mobilise quickly to answer the consumer demand for baking ingredients. They swiftly launched their brand new range of #BakeOn home bakingmixes, which includes bread flour, mixes and yeast, andmixes for brownies, flapjacks, pizza dough, and sponges andmuffins. Leanne Crowther, co- founder of Flower &White explains, “We are always looking around us at what’s going on, especially overseas, so we knew this was coming a good couple of weeks before it hit. We’d polled our customers about what they were going to fill their time with during lockdown, and we wanted to be part of the solution during this crisis. We assessed what we could do within our four walls and quickly kicked into action andmobilised some of key suppliers in branding, ingredients etc overnight to turn this around in a heartbeat. It was due to quick thinking, great customer feedback and a lot of amazing support, and playing to our strengths inmanufacturing.” It’s not only conventional baking ingredients such as flour, butter and eggs that have witnessed a surge in popularity. ““We’ve seen a rapid increase in sales across the board, with baking products being of note, growing by just over 160%,” says Al Shariat, director at Coconut Merchant. “While the growth has been influenced by an increased interest in vegan products, it’s also been strongly affected by a greater understanding and awareness for coconut baking products like coconut sugar and coconut flour, as well as the versatility of coconut oil in baking recipes.” The better the ingredients, the better the bake As ever, shoppers are looking to Speciality Food readers for quality alternatives to the products widely available on supermarket shelves. The role our sector plays here is in educating consumers on the value of these oftenmore expensive products; having themunderstand why ingredients which are cheap elsewhere are well worth a touch more investment. When it comes to chocolate, more quality equals more enjoyment as Mandy Bobrowski, Divine Chocolate’s interimmarketing director explains: “Cheaper cooking chocolate is usually laden with sugar, contains palm oil and has a low cocoa content. But high quality chocolate like Divine is made with natural ingredients, has a high cocoa content, lower sugar content and is palm oil-free.” “It all comes down to butterfat percentage and how it’s made,” says Mary Quicke of Quicke’s butter products. “The quality of the feed the animal has in turn goes into the milk/cream/butter, giving a higher fat percentage and better flavour. We control what the cows eat and how they are bred from start to finish, which gives a particular flavour to our products. Quality butter will make your pastry and cakes taste better; better quality produce always produces better cooking.” RISING TO THE OCCASION Home baking ingredients have seen rocketing sales during the coronavirus outbreak, as the nation turns to experimenting in the kitchen “ As people have taken to doing more baking and cooking at home we have definitely seen our sales of home baking ingredients increase. Rose water, vanilla extract, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are our top baking products at the moment ” SOPHIE STEENBERG, CO-FOUNDER OF STEENBERGS “ There’s an awful lot of trying out and upskilling with home baking right now. It’s got to be easy to follow ” LEANNE CROWTHER, CO-FOUNDER OF FLOWER & WHITE Geoffrey Bligh, co-owner of Hanks Deli, Ipswich WHY’S BAKING SO HUGE RIGHT NOW? I think in such an uncertain time, being able to make food for your family and those you care about brings happiness to the person making it and those that get to enjoy it. So many things right now are out of people’s control but this is something you can take charge of. WHAT ARE CONSUMERS BUYING? Flour. So much flour! We did some quick calculations and figure we have probably sold close to 500kg of yeast – and at about 7 grams of yeast per loaf, that works out to a lot of bread! HAS THE DEMAND FOR VEGAN BAKING PRODUCTS GROWN? I would have to say yes. Previously we didn’t stock a lot of the vegan basics because our customers who regularly used these products already knew where to get them; we always focused on the harder to find products. Now we see a lot of people coming in with that look of ‘I’m about to ask if you stock something I’ve never used before...’ and of course we get asked for advice on how to use ingredients all the time. RETAILER INSIGHT