When cakes, biscuits, bread and pastries are your business, it may feel like the “food regulation police” are tracking your every move.
With new legislation coming into place in recent years many bakeries have genuine concerns about how to expand their business – and be a success in today’s climate.
Indeed, many consumers are more health conscious and nutritionally aware, but that certainly doesn’t mean that nutritional analysis will harm your business.
In this article, we look at how MenuSano food analysis software is helping three different types of Canadian bakery businesses to thrive in today’s market.
And, of course, how MenuSano can help bring further success to your bakery business
BonBon Collections Sucess Stories
BonBon Collections is an innovative and unique bakery that produces cakes, and bakery products made using non-allergenic ingredients.
Three percent of Canadians suffer from food allergies aside from many that suffer from food intolerances and sensitivities and as such BonBon is rapidly expanding.
Owner, mum and self-declared foodie Thao Nguyen explains how MenuSano is simply invaluable to her business:
People’s lives are literally in my hands and I need to include nutritional information with my products. I produce products that are gluten, dairy and egg-free as well as ensuring my ingredients haven’t come into contact with known allergens. My business model and recipes are based on lots of seasonal fresh fruit. Using an outside nutritionist was just too costly and timely for me. Not just that, I am always changing the amounts and recipes to make product improvements so MenuSano has proved an invaluable resource for my business.
Windmill Bakery Amazing Experience with MenuSano
When new owners Grace and Dan Willows bought traditional Dutch bakery Windmill, they retained the original recipes and customers, but they also wanted to grow into the retail space and wholesale market. Doing so meant that legally they had to produce nutritional information as per provincial health regulations.
Grace discovered MenuSano software to produce the required nutritional information had learned a great deal along the way, she explains:
Prior to using MenuSano I thought we were healthier than we actually were. Using the software has allowed us to adapt recipes, easily. And make them more healthy and trend wise products.
Bridgehead Experience after Implementing MenuSano Menu Labels
Bridgehead has over twenty retail outlets. As such, they were needed for the Healthy Food Services Act to produce nutritional information in the form of labels and signage.
Bridgehead use MenuSano to produce their nutritional information for their customers, and Kevin Harbison, Bridgehead Customer and Community Representative explains some benefits:
We find that customers are interested in calories, fiber, sodium and saturated fat. While we have seen little change in some popular items since we have introduced nutritional information we have seen a movement towards lower calorie and vegan options. We also find enormous benefit in using the MenuSano software in the developmental stages of our products.
Nutritional Software for Small Bakeries
In this article, so far, we’ve looked at three businesses that specifically need nutritional analysis as per legislation or in the case of BonBon to back up their health information which is crucial to their business model.
To be clear though, if you are a small bakery producing products in-store, the legislation does not currently require you to provide nutritional information for your products.
However, including nutritional information always has an overall positive impact on sales, whatever type of bakery business you are.
Consumers with health concerns, such as diabetes or high blood pressure can use the information you provide to monitor their diets. When you provide nutritional labeling, they will be able to include your products albeit in possibly limited amounts. Still, a positive result though regarding your sales as before they would not be able to consume any of your products. And with an aging population do not underestimate the number of these customers.
When you display nutritional information, you will also appear more trustworthy, informative and professional to your consumers; who always has the effect of boosting sales.
Some customers may shy away from higher calorie or higher fat products but armed with this information you can refocus your efforts on products that are selling well. You can use nutritional software to cleverly extend your product range and produce fewer high-calorie products and more reduced fat/sodium products; if they’re proving popular with your customers.
The software is easy to work with and will allow you to adapt your products with consumers requirements in keeping with today’s market.
Not just that, well-researched and produced products that are lower in calories and fat can attract a far higher price point regarding ingredient costs.
So don’t be mistaken that you have to be a considerable retailer or have several establishments to benefit from the nutritional software.
Affordability Is the Key
MenuSano is a remarkably affordable option for smaller bakeries wanting to provide nutritional information for their customers. While analyzing just one product can cost up to $800; small business can purchase MenuSano software for as little as $25 per month. You can even try out the MenuSano software for free.
Why Nutritional Software Is Better
Using nutritional software means that companies like yours no longer need to hire nutritionists and laboratories to conduct their testing. It’s not just that nutritional analysis is an affordable option for smaller companies when laboratory analysis is not an option. It’s better for several reasons:
Varying Ingredients
Many ingredients vary naturally so using a mean of nutritional data is more accurate than sending off your product and having it analyzed once. Say, for example, you make apple pies all year round, then you will find that nutritional content of the apples will vary from season to season. Nutritional software, unlike lab analysis, will give you a mean figure for the nutritional content of the fruit and, therefore, your information will be more accurate.
Time
If you send dishes to a lab or a nutritionist, you’ll be waiting up to three weeks for results. With nutritional software, you have results instantaneously in-house and can compare your dish directly with the nutritional analysis. That’s also a big plus if you are making a seasonal product with seasonal fruit, such as pumpkin bread. In many cases, you will be waiting for nutritional information for a relatively long period if the fruit is only in season for a few weeks or months.
In-house
The nutritional software has the edge over lab analysis in the same way as a digital camera does over taking photos with an analog camera – and then sending pictures to a lab to be developed.
Remember all the stickers over your photos – Bad light? Image too close? If you had all that information to start with; as you do with a digital camera, you wouldn’t bother wasting your money sending most of your photos to the lab, in the first place.
By using nutritional software in-house, you can produce, taste your product and compare it with the nutritional analysis, directly there and then – and make changes accordingly, at no additional cost.
You can vary a product several times over, comparing along the way to produce a perfectly balanced product with nutritional analysis at your fingertips.
That way you can find the perfect happy medium of a product that taste greats, cooks well, and strikes a healthy nutritional content you and your customers are looking for.
This process is not possible with lab analysis. If you wanted to try and test, say ten versions of one product, it would cost thousands to perfect your product. With MenuSano software you can work and test your products as many times as you like. The only limits are your and your team’s desires and enthusiasm!
MenuSano The Magical Solution For Quick Transformation
MenuSano software is the perfect way to equip your bakery business in today’s health-conscious market with newly introduced legislation. Whatever size bakery you currently are, and whoever your customer base is present, MenuSano is the perfect way to bring success to your bakery business.
The limitless MenuSano software starts from just $35 per month. Check out pricing and register for a free trial, today!
