Battle of Industrial and Artisanal Bakery: Searching for A Compromise

Bread is now gaining popularity in Indonesia. As young urban population is rocketing, there is a need for convenient on-the-go meal. Bread is considered as an affordable staple food which can be consumed anywhere anytime. In 2014-2016, bread has the highest growth expenditure compared to instant noodle and rice, showing a shift in eating habits of Indonesian.

For some people, bread is bread. But breads are created unequally. In general, two main categories of bread are freshly baked and store-bought packaged bread. What makes them so different?

Artisan / craft bakeries

Fresh bakery products are handmade in artisan bakery by skilled bakers with the help of small-scale machine. The products are directly sold to consumer. To artisan’s, time is the most important “ingredient” for making the perfect bread because they need time for kneading, time for fermenting, and time for dough to rest. As a result, artisan bread requires longer production time – but it’s worth the wait because final product will have better flavor and texture with high moisture and open crumbs.

Artisans use basic ingredients, such as flour, water, yeast, and salt, usually without any chemical additives. Therefore, artisan product is assumed to be healthier – that’s why the demand for artisan is increasing nowadays. However, according to a study in Weizmann Institute of Science, both artisan and industrial bread have no clinical significant difference on glucose levels upon waking, fat and cholesterol levels, the amounts of essential minerals in blood, and several indicators of inflammation and tissue damage. Moreover, what actually defines artisan? Currently, there is no regulation defining the term “craft” or “artisan” in Indonesia.

Industrial / factory bakeries

Large-scale bakery industry mainly produces packaged bread sold in retails. More consistent bakery products are produced in shorter time. How does industry cut the time of bread making? By using Chorleywood Baking Process (CBP), fermentation time is cut to an hour because the use of high-speed mixers will incorporate more air and water into the dough and enzyme supplementation can develop gluten structure faster. The use of dough conditioner also allows shorter fermentation time and strengthens dough to withstand shaping, dividing, and molding process. Processing is more cost-efficient, but the product quality is reduced as the crumb is closed (less airy).

In 2016, Indonesia baked goods market is dominated by artisanal producers with more than half of total market (63.8%). Artisan bakery used to have low turnover rate targeting local & price sensitive consumer, but some professional artisanal bakery nowadays delivers products at wider range and higher price targeting middle-upper consumer. Meanwhile, industrial bakery mainly targets middle-lower consumer with regular consumption of bread.

With higher demand of fresh baked products, the challenge now is producing artisan bread industrially.  Industrial bakery is urged to produce bread quality similar to artisan, but how? Using novel technology that allows longer fermentation time to have a more open crumb structure or replacing chemicals with enzymes in dough conditioner can be the answer.

Utilization of frozen dough technology might also be a solution for this problem. Dough mixing, kneading, & proofing are usually carried out in industry, while final baking takes place in small retail to deliver fresh baked products to consumer. However, frozen dough has challenges regarding the availability of freezing technology, the need of freeze-tolerant yeast, and optimization of formulation, hence improvement in science and technology is highly required.

References

Bakerpedia. (n.d.). Artisan Bakery. Retrieved from Bakerpedia

Bakerpedia. (n.d.). Chorleywood Baking Process. Retrieved from Bakerpedia

European Commission. (2016). The Food and Beverage Market Entry Handbook: Indonesia.

Federation of Bakers. (n.d.). About the Bread Industry. Retrieved from FOB

Flour Station. (2013). Artisan bread: what’s all the fuss about? Retrieved from jamieoliver.com

Lilleberg, K. (2012). An “Ideal” Bread A Bread Baking Intervention (Master Thesis). Retrieved from ODA

Moskin, J. (20014). Taking the Artisan Out of Artisanal: Good Bread Goes Commercial. Retrieved from New York Times

Responses, M. P. G., Korem, T., Zeevi, D., Zmora, N., Levy, A. A., Elinav, E., … Lotan-pompan, M. (2017). Clinical and Translational Report Bread Affects Clinical Parameters and Induces Gut Clinical and Translational Report Bread Affects Clinical Parameters and Induces Gut Microbiome-Associated Personal Glycemic Responses. Cell Metabolism, 25(6), 1243–1253.e5. DOI

Suwanto, W. & Yapply, J. (2017). Report Initiation, The Maestro of Baking. Nippon Indosari Corpindo.