Miller Magazine Issue: 140 August 2021

66 ARTICLE MILLER / august 2021 fresh bakery product distribution: • The development of click & collect, on-line shopping and home deliveries will continue in the near future, including for fresh bakery products, which until then had been little concerned by digitalisation. • The potential permanent closure of many restaurants, the con- tinuation of remote working and the recovery of travels will affect the recovery of the foodservice sectors. Fresh bakery product supply strategies have been reconsidered The COVID-19 crisis has also had an impact on fresh bak- ery product supply strategies. During lockdown, the use of bake-off increased to the detriment of scratch baking on the premises, which faced problems of labour shortages and new sanitary constraints. Fresh bakery products deliveries (for re- sale) have decreased during lockdown, due to the difficulties of ensuring daily deliveries. However, in some countries new opportunities have emerged for industrial fresh products. At a European level, Gira’s cal- culations for 2020 indicate a 15% decrease in artisanal fresh bakery product production (artisan bak- ers, modern retailers’ in-store bak- eries and restaurants), whereas industrial production (packaged, fresh and bake-off products) has only seen a 5% reduction. According to Gira interviews, on the one hand, many channels are determined to resume with their initial pre-crisis supply meth- ods with the “new normal” situa- tion. On the other hand, channels who started using bake-off during the crisis are likely to continue to use those types of products, at least for part of their supplies. While retailers and caterers have expressed their gratitude towards suppliers who have managed to main- tain deliveries during lockdown despite difficult conditions, some addi- tional requirements could however remain: increased demand for more regional supplies, greater transparency and monitoring of the supply chain, more packaging for fresh products to avoid contamination. Bake- off manufacturers will now have to take these requirements into account. European bake-off manufacturers were not spared by the pan- demic. Bake-off is the most promising sector (growing by more than + 3% per year before the pandemic) in a steady European bakery market, but it has also seen a drop in volumes in 2020. Companies most affected were those manufacturers specializing in foodservice channels or in sweet or savoury products. In the future, the winning manufacturers will be those capable of decreasing their level of exposure to a specific channel (e.g. foodservice), their degree of product specialisation, and who will have the ability to switch from one technology to another (fresh vs. packaged, or different bake-off technologies). Quarterly Fresh Bakery Products Distribution Change in Europe, 2020 & 2021 compared to 2019 – (base case scenario) Disruption in fresh bakery product distribution