Bakery innovation at Food Ingredients Europe 2013

Food Ingredients Europe is in full swing here in Frankfurt and the halls are buzzing with talk of how amendments to the EFSA guidelines at its meeting tomorrow could open the floodgates on a new raft of innovation.

For the past year, only claims involving vitamins and minerals have been permitted in new product developments meeting EFSA regulations.

I spoke with Pascal Philibert, CEO of Philibert Savours. This company is adding flavour to soft and crusty breads to create more interesting bakery offerings, such as a spinach-flavoured bread to go with salmon, and a tex mex flavour bread to go with meats, plus tomato and curry breads that work well with chicken.

They have also just developed a sourdough bread for the rapidly growing French bakery chain Marie Blachere, which now has 220 shops in the suburbs and plans to open 60 more.

"We focus on what the customer wants and that is innovation," said Philibert. "They are looking for something new and well designed. We also offer improvers, which increase shelf life. It is the beginning of a beautiful story."

And looking at Pascal's beautiful Kenzo suit and stylish cobalt blue glasses, it is evident that design is high on his agenda: "We have been working on a special rye loaf for Russia, as people there are looking at a return to the rustic breads of their childhood, with an evocative pull that rings a bell in their emotional subconscious," he said.

We also touched on the problems of obesity and the recent move in some parts of the US to abandon bread as part of the everyday diet. "This is unnecessary and a sad limiting of the variety of foods we eat," he said. "There is no need to cut anything out. Limit it by all means, but choose the best quality and just have a little. As there is no doubt that some people have become imprisoned in their bodies. It has become a jail and that is so sad, but the choice is up to the individual and of course it does not happen overnight."

He said how generally there is a great upsurge in many countries of people looking for high levels of nuts and grains in their foods, and looking for slow release energy, so a big move away from soft, sweet breads towards grain-rich and crusty breads.