EU not to ban sale by numbers

The baking industry will be relieved to here that the EU has denied reports that a new law would ban the sale of products by number.
New legislation is being drawn up to label all products by weight but this will not prevent the sale of selected goods by the dozen, such as eggs or rolls.
MEP Renate Sommer said: "There will be no changes to selling foods by number. Selling eggs by the dozen, for example, will not be banned."

The move could have cost bakers significant funds as they would have had to change packaging and purchase advanced weighing equipment.
Tory MEP Syed Kamall said: "In Britain, millions of pounds could be wasted by shops and bakers having to change packaging just to comply with a directive which nobody here asked for or voted for."
The confusion occurred after MEPs voted against selling goods purely by number – but this will not prevent labels detailing the number as long the weight is also listed.

source
http://www.guttridge.co.uk

Back from short vacation

 Back  from   my  short  vacation .  Missed you  all   and  updates  on  bakery  world

I had  short vacation  at my  ancestral   remote village   more on that later

IGNOU To Offer Food Safety Course

The Indira Gandhi National Open University ( IGNOU) is going to start a two-week appreciation course on 'Food Safety and Quality' with the help of the Quality Council of India (QCI) and the School of Agriculture.

A university press release Saturday said that about 20 participants from different institutions across the country will attend the course.

'The objective is to increase awareness regarding food safety and different national and international food standards. This would help them to understand the food safety acts, agreements and their implications,' the statement said.

The classes would run June 14-25 at the IGNOU campus. The course will also include industrial visits.IGNOU  is India largest  Distance Learning  University recognised  by government and private institutions .

IANS

Britannia Launches Milk Bikis Almond Cookies

Another  Product launch from India's Biscuit Major -  Britannia Industries Limited

Milk Bikis   is one of the power brands of Britannia and  has been oldest of brands from Britannia stable   ,almost three decades of launch  Britannia in process of increasing the brands life cycle  is attempting to expand in cookies  segment  which is witnessing robust growth in recent time s.


News .

pic courtesy - The Hindu

Britannia Industries has added one more product ‘Milk Bikis Almond Cookies' to its Milk Bikis category. Addressing presspersons here on Thursday after launching the product, Anuradha Narasimhan, Category Director (Health & Wellness), Britannia Industries, said after nearly 45 years of the launch of Milk Bikis, the company had come out with another variety in this category. Initially, this product would be available in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Over time it would go national, she said.

Milk Bikis were popular in coastal states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal where milk was deficient.

In Tamil Nadu alone, 30 million packs of Milk Bikis were sold a month, she said. The product, with wholesome goodness of milk and almond in a cookie format, was a delightful combination delivering additional nutrition, important especially for children's growth and development, Ms. Anuradha Narasimhan said.

Britannia was the most favourite food brand catering to consumers in all demographic and socio-economic segments, she said.

According to Dharini Krishnan, eminent nutritionist, badam and milk were important in general diet to increase mental sharpness in growing children. “Children enjoy snacking and therefore giving them an essential dose of nutrients in a manner they will enjoy is an effective solution to get the right nutrition into their system,” she said.

Source - UNI

http://beta.thehindu.com/business/companies/article452117.ece

Third Of India s Food Industry Ignorant Of Safety Standards - FICCI

Food processing in India  is still to have  stringent food laws as compared to  European countries, Canada and USA  . These countries have laws which governs entire supply chain for food items which are sold into market . With people demanding better food products  the government has set up a nodal agency   FSSAI  with an act  in parliament  to regulate , monitor and advise  food industry on food safety issue .

Nearly a third of the players in India's food industry are not aware about safety standards and related rules, as per a survey conducted by a leading industry lobby, with the majority of respondents calling for a re-alignment of laws to global levels. 

'A majority of respondents (86 percent), though, feel that the Food Safety and Standards Act has served the purpose of a unified food law in the country,' as per the survey conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

In the survey, 75 percent of the respondents said there should be harmonization of Indian food regulations with internationally accepted standards to meet consumer aspiration of safe and healthy food at par with global standards. 

Asked if there should be a single reference point or office to handle industry queries on food safety standards, 73 percent of the respondents voted in affirmation. While 19 percent did not feel this need, 8 percent remained clueless. 

According to the chamber, over 700 responses were received from across the food sector, including small, medium and large industries, and covered not only domestic companies but also multinational corporations.

The survey was meant for collecting responses on the food safety laws and regulations in the country, apart from what the stakeholders felt about the challenges and expectations from policy-makers.

Based on the responses, the lobby said the top three issues of concern for the industry were lack of testing facilities, little industry representation in framing policies and lack of transparency in preparing reports and in setting regulatory standards. 

Source   IANS

Bosch Packaging Streamlines Its Packaging Businesses For Better Synergy

 Bosch Packaging  one of the world largest manufacturers of packaging machine and packaging integrated systems have re organised and renamed  packaging businesses spread across  number of countries

The US-based Doboy Inc., New Richmond, has become Bosch Packaging Technology, Inc.
The Dutch Tevopharm B.V., Schiedam, has been renamed as Bosch Packaging Technology B.V.
The Swiss Demaurex SA, Lausanne, will be called Bosch Packaging Technology SA. And the Dutch Robert Bosch Verpakkingsmachines B.V., Weert, will change its company name to Robert Bosch Packaging Technology B.V.
Commenting on the re-organisation, Friedbert Klefenz, president of Bosch Packaging Technology said: "The standardization of company names underscores the complete integration of our companies under the umbrella of Bosch Packaging Technology, emphasizing our one-stop shopping strategy across all Business Units.”


Source :www.ap-foodtechnology.com

Imported Vs Local -localising packing machine spares

For most  of the industrialised countries   bakery equipments and packaging machines  are sourced from local suppliers but for  the developing countries and  least industrialised country  majority of equipments are sourced from other  countries including packaging machines .

Packing machines for bread bagging , HFW ( Horizontal flow wrap machine ) machines (for biscuits , cakes , cookies  and wafers ), vertical pouch sealing machines and other accessories like carton sealing  machines . Packing machines  has got large number of  spares and these has to be replaced regularly  as they get worn out .
 

Packaging machine  once installed  by OEMs( Original  equipment  manufacturer ) requires  constant supply of spares for smooth functioning of machines , for which  spares are to be  imported from OEMS in bulk and kept in stock as inventory .

Imports  of these  spares sometimes  leads to stock out situation and  production loss , as imports of material involves   documents , dealing with several agencies  like  freight forwarder , transporters , custom authorities etc   .Another major problem is   lots of clarification and memos to be sent to OEMS on part specifications  or  material  are  returned  due to wrong interpretation of  serial numbers or part numbers .  Damages in transit  are frequent , even loss in transit are reported for  many smaller parts .

To cut down  over dependence  on off shore supplier and eliminate  production loss due to unavailability of spares  one needs to develop  a strategy  to gradually  replaces packing machines spares  locally . These would require plant engineers and technician to

• Select   critical spares  and  check whether these can be substituted
• Develop  a close relation ship  with  work shop and  bear cost  of development 
• Selection of material is important  and try to match the exact material specification 
• Don't sacrifice quality over  cost .

Some Parts which can substituted  in packaging machines

•    Carrier Lugs
•    Shafts
•    Gears
•    Guides 
•    Electrical switch gears
•    Pneumatic  valves and cylinder
•    Heaters 
•    Cutters/Knifes
•    Fabricated parts
•    Conveyor belts 
•    Rubber Rollers 

Its  always beneficial to develop  local  suppliers for imported packaging machines or other major bakery equipments.Its highly recommended to check whether the packing machine supplier has any local service representative  or not .

Aryzta Buys US Bakeries For $1.08Bln

FOOD GROUP Aryzta enjoyed a near 8 per cent climb in its share price yesterday as it announced two new US-based acquisitions that will double its production capacity and expand its global footprint.
The company, which was formed following the IAWS takeover of Swiss baker Hiestand, bought Fresh Start Bakeries for $900 million and the pizza supplier Great Kitchens for $180 million.

Fresh Start operates 29 specialist production facilities across the US, Canada, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand and has three joint ventures located in North America, Chile and Guatemala. It makes products not currently supplied by Aryzta, such as burger buns and ciabatta bread.
Great Kitchens is one of the leading pizza manufacturers in North America serving regional and national grocery chains and retail stores with premium quality pizzas and sandwiches.

Both businesses supply to the quick-service restaurant sector, with 70 per cent of sales in North America.
The combined revenue of the two businesses is €1.03 billion, with associated earnings before tax and write-offs of €133 million.
Aryzta, which counts Cuisine de France and La Brea bakery among its brands, raised its outlook for the full year, saying it expects underlying earnings per share to rise due to the new acquisitions.

Source
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0609/1224272116763.html

Raisio 's To Launch Cholesterol Lowering Benecol Bread In Romania

Dobrogea Grup is a leading company in the milling and bakery industry  Romania. The company's product range includes flours and biscuits. In 09, Dobrogea Grup's net sales was EUR 60 million. 

With the launch of the cholesterol-lowering bread, Dobrogea and Benecol will open a new market for cholesterol-lowering foods in Romania. The Benecol bread launch follows the seminars held in the early winter for health care professionals in Romania. Consumer awareness of the new product will be raised by extensive media campaigns.

Romanian people are increasingly interested in and aware of healthy nutrition. So far, consumers have preferred traditional products and the meaning of nutritional content has been secondary in food choices, but people have shown a clear interest in, for example, additive- and preservative-free products. In the prevention of heart diseases, consumers are gradually starting to favour healthier lifestyle and nutritional ways to maintain good health.

The launch in Romania will increase the awareness and visibility of the Benecol brand in Eastern Europe. Raisio's strength is in the ability to adjust, together with its partners, to local inhabitants' purchasing behaviour and in launching Benecol products suitably applied to the markets in question. The Benecol bread on the Romanian market is a good example. Raisio will continue the preparation work with its local partners to launch new products on new markets.

source

www.flex-news-foods.com

Production Planning And Its Role In Bakery

Production planning plays a very important role in bakery . Its main objective is to plan production of various SKU s in advance so as to enable each part of production to be ready when actual production is schedule . Production plan are made generally for a month and further broken down to weekly and daily production plan . Production plan also helps in getting product with optimum cost . Big bakeries with multi locational presence  have centralized production plan made and which are then synchronised with individual plants at local levels .Production planning help companies to avoid any sale loss due to un availability of product .In most of the large bakeries PPC ( Production Planning & Control ) takes help of ERP software to plan production .

Sales forecast

PPC deptt collects the sales forecast from sales deptt and plan s production keeping into following factors in mind. Normally a pattern is set for various SKUS demand with few special orders such as Promos or  special orders from big customer s.
Production plans are made with these critical factors

• Availability of material
• Availability of manpower
• Availability of plant and machinery
• Dispatch plan 
• Festivals packs  and promotions  planning in advance 

Material requirement planning

Once sales forecast are available PPC deptt issues material requisition to purchase deptt for sourcing of ingredients , packaging and some cases machine spare parts .Lead time plays important role hence material having longer lead time needs to be procured in larger volume .Also one needs to check the stock s in hand while ordering .

Plant loading

PPC deptt then plan the optimum loading of plants with keeping in view the plant efficiency /capacities and availability . Production plan helps engineering deptt to take any modification or repair in advance to meet the schedule .

Change Overs

Normally change overs are avoided but for demand from market PPC has to plan change overs with minimum loss of time and loss to production .

Manpower

Manpower requirement are spelt out in advance with help of production plan so that in case of increase in number the HR deptt arrange the numbers in advance or inversely if decrease in requirement of worker the labor contractors are notified in advance. Weekly  offs to be scheduled  as per production plan .

Dispatch

Once the production plan is made the logistics deptt arrange for the container accordingly and the containers are ready at the time of production and documentation done without delays.

Even after careful production planning there might be changes in production plan for which there should be a secondary plan which can be taken without significant loss to the company . Main Reasons are listed

1 Stock out situation for raw material/packaging

2 Break down of machinery

3 Non availability of labour

4 Cancellation of Order

5 Situation like strikes / government orders / Break down in Utilities such as electricity /water supply .

6 Transport Problem

PPC deptt acts as the centre of all activity  related to factory operations hence it  should be alert and keep a tab on developments  of internal and external factors affecting factory operations  .

Tim Tam Commercial

Increase In LPG Prices Threatens Indonesian Bakeries

Fuel  in bakeries constitutes major part on costing of  the products . With daily surge on crude oil price in international market  governments  of many  countries  have no option   but to increase the prices of petrol , diesel  and  related products such as LPG ,CNG  etc .

Indonesia    is one such   example

New s article

VIVAnews - Basic electricity tariff and 12-kg LPG's prices are expected to be revised in the near future.



Small-sized industries may be highly affected by the plan. Head of Indonesian Association of Bakery Producers (APEBI) Chris Hardijaya said even now before the prices are doubled, the said industries have been bothered by the high prices of 12-kg LPG.


"The industries require four 12-kg LPG tubes for production worth Rp 300,000 of prices. Should the price go up, the costs of LPG would be Rp 400,000," he said today, June 2.



On the other hand, he said further, bread selling prices cannot be multiplied sharply. As a result, small-sized industries will be closed and layoffs cannot be avoided. "It will be the worst effect of the plan," he said.

In addition, he said, industries and homes would target the cheapest LPG of three kilograms.


A spokesperson of the small-sized industry, Sium Muchji, said that sellers now find it difficult to find 12-kg LPG. "There's shortage in the market. We used to get 30 tubes of supply. But now we are only supplied 10 tubes," Siu said.

Although  Bakery Industry in Indonesia has been dominated by unbranded cottage industry .Few modern bakeries and retail have opened up in Indonesia . Among popular player in modern bakery industry are Holland Bakery, Dunkin Donuts, JCo, BreadTalk, Breadstory, Mama Oven, Breadboy  and   retail players such as Matahari .

Source : en.vivanews.com

Solution to such a scenario would be selective subsidy   by government   to the bakeries  who  employ   number of workers in their bakeries .In a trade of between them on cheaper bread and  bakery products

Bonn - A Regional Power Brand In North India

Indian Biscuit market has been primarily dominated by big 3 Britannia , Parle and ITC .New players have been recently added such as United Biscuit and Kraft ( Yet to begin manufacturing ) . But few regional brands are giving tough competition to these entrenched brands .

In north Indian market Bonn is the one brands which has successfully build inroads to the bakery products market and are available at all major retail chains and bakery retail chains . Bonn products have also spread to UP ,Rajasthan and Gujarat .

History

It all started 25 years ago when Mr Manjit Singh installed a small bakery in Ludhiana ,Punjab 1985 with 5 bag flour capacity/day . Since then Bonn has spectacular growth in bakery market .

Now they have 4 food processing units and one packaging unit .

These food processing units include bread , biscuit , cakes and cookies plant .Bonn has volume in terms of 2.5 lakh loaves of bread per day with 1.5 lakh units of other bakery product . Bonn is now taking on big brands in north India.


Bonn have got alliance for its bakery items with major retail chains such as Walmart , Reliance fresh , Cafe coffee day , Spencer , KFC , Barista ,Indian Railways ,More and BIG BAZAR

Products

Bread , Rusk , Cakes , Biscuits , Cookies , Buns and Burgers

Brands

Some of the popular brands of Bonn are

Biscuit - Cream Delight ,Mariebon , Glucobon , Mast Makhan , Minibits,Bourbon

Cake - Cottage Cake

Bread /burgers /buns/rusk - Prime Time

Bread could be found in different categories like whole  wheat  , hi fibre , brown , milk and multi grain .


HQ

Head Quarters:
204, k-1, Jhabewal, Chandigarh Road,
Ludhiana - 141123 (Punjab)
Phones:+91-161- 2685104, 2685105, 2685106, 2685107


for more details visit http://www.bonn.in/

Biscuit Sold At Local Weekly Market ( Bazar)

pic by sandeep sangwan

Basic Terms Used In Horizontal Flow Wrap Packing Machine -Part1

Horizontal  flow wrap  machines  are widely used in biscuit , cookies , bread and cake  packaging . Different types of packaging formats are   available  in  horizontal  flow wrap  machine . We  have  complex  to simple  horizontal flow wrap machine ( HFW )

Basic HFW  machines classifications are
1.On the  Edge packing machine       2.Pile type       3.  Cream sandwiching type  4. Single lane   5. Multi lane

In series of  post  on Horizontal  Flow Wrap  Packing Machine  
Basic terms which are used  for  HFW  packing machine

Auto feeders
Feeding chutes
Cross feed
Infeed Chain
Infeed Lugs

Lateral Chain

Lateral Lugs

Stack Length

Cut off length

Change Over parts
Serrations
Forming box

Eye mark sensor

Eye mark
Round Heater
Cutter/Knife
Dwell Time
Anvil
Packet Per Minute
On the Edge
Pile
Pillow Pack
Jaws
Printer
Flexible laminates/wrapper
Forward and reverse  correction
Jogg

Britannia Gears Up For Rural Markets With Cookies

Britannia   has always been laggard in rural marketing  Her competitors have  better share of semi urban and rural  market  but not now  as  britannia gear up for  rural thrust with Cookies brands  of biscuit

A calculated push into the rural and semi-urban areas, say experts, is Britannia’s way to lead the market. As rivalries in the markets, urban as well as rural, are intense, it needs to identify newer and newer markets and segments to hold on to its share of the market. An equity analyst from India Infoline says: “Biscuits and cookies form the largest segment of processed foods and everyone will fight for a share of the pie.”

McCann Executive Chairman Prasoon Joshi crafted the communication with the tagline of Tan ko lage, man ko chuye, which means that the product benefits the body’s constitution and endears itself to the eater. Says Britannia Industries Category Director (delight & lifestyle) Shalini Degan: “For socio-economic categories B and C, nutrition from the food they eat is more critical than a dose of energy or taste. They travel long distances in less comfortable environments, so a product like this could be a staple like a bottle of water. With elaichi (cardamom) and butter, cookies do have great taste; but that is secondary to them being a wholesome go-between.” The TVC starring actor Dipti Naval portrays how Britannia Cookies can slip in between missed meals.

Read more on
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/britannia-industries-cookie-goes-rural/18/47/396473/

Britains Bakeries Shows Impressive Sales Figures

When all other manufacturing industries have been struggling for survival bakeries in Britain s have posted better profit margin and sales figure


A brief report


In what has been a positive year for bakers, family-run firm Warburton’s has posted staggering profits for 2009.

The Bolton-based baking giant saw pre-tax profits rise by more than £5.2 million to reach £62.7 million in the year ending September 26th 2009, compared to £57.5 million in the same period the previous year.


Warburton’s profits were boosted by a year-on-year sales rise of six per cent, which took total revenues to £510.8 million.

Company chairman John Warburton hailed the firm’s "solid operating performance" in what he viewed as a "difficult economic environment".


It seems Britain’s booming baking industry is the best thing the manufacturing sector has seen since sliced bread as firms across the board continue to post healthy profits.


Earlier this year, national firm Greggs posted a sales hike of 2.6 per cent for the first 18 weeks of the year, while last week it was the turn of Scottish company Lees Foods, which reported that year-on-year sales had jumped by £2.1 million to reach £18.2 million




Source :http://www.guttridge.co.uk/news
Author : Emma