Almonds are a key ingredient that can help broaden dietary options in snack products through their wide variety of forms that help introduce new flavor experiences and offer many health benefits.

Prepared Foods gets the inside scoop on new product development from Stacey Kinkaid, US Foods vice president of product development & innovation.

“The prices for all ingredients can be very high,” affirms Andrea Bayne, owner and head baker of BoriMami Bakery in Melbourne, Florida. “Demand for organic products exceeds supply, which can cause price increases and make consistent sourcing an issue.”

The two-day event brought more than 200 food and beverage industry attendees together on a unique discovery journey themed, “A Canvas for Creation.” It featured new concepts, flavors and ingredients designed to help them grow their product portfolios and craft solutions for the future.

Together the companies will offer industry-leading holistic innovation services to help clients create the future of food, from front-end insights, strategy and creative development, through full-service R&D, scale-up and commercialization. 

Common technical challenges that arise when formulating with natural colors in bakery applications include color degradation during processing, color bleeding, and color fading over the product’s shelf life. “When selecting natural colors for bakery items with longer shelf lives, developers must consider various factors to maintain product quality,” explains Nidhi Jaiswal, MS, a food scientist specializing in human nutrition.

Amid signs of progress after a few challenging years for the food and beverage supply chain, brands are planning to dial up product innovation efforts to meet consumer demand (42%), combat rising costs (46%), and stay competitive (51%).

The founder of Justin's and the former CEO of Rudi's and Lily's joined forces last year to reinvent Rudi's Organic Bakery—and give this nearly 50-year-old company the mentality of a start-up! Jane Miller was CEO at Rudi’s from 2008 to 2014. 

The Almond Board of California (ABC) announced the kickoff of its national Tastemaker Trials student competition, which invites U.S. college and university students to create delicious almond-based snack products that excite the tastebuds of younger generations and set a new standard for "intentional indulgence" in snacks.

As Mars looks to double its Snacking business in the next decade, the new facility will give Mars' 300 R&D Associates in Chicago runway to create and refine new products for the company's multi-billion-dollar snacking portfolio before they are scaled at large around the globe.