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British retailers and distributors are facing significant commercial pressures this autumn. For one thing, there’s a marked shortage of HGV drivers that is hampering logistical operations and forcing up the associated labour costs. For another, the cost of fuel for road vehicles is rising sharply, adding further to businesses’ expenses.

In conjunction with this, energy prices are also skyrocketing. That’s affecting the cost of gas and space-heating, but it’s also driving up the cost of electricity. That means that every process that requires power is costing companies more.

However, clients who shift their purchasing towards longer-life products can help to offset both problems.

Long-Life Products and Transport Costs

Products with longer shelf lives typically require fewer (but often larger) deliveries. For example, a doughnut that lasts 30 days clearly doesn’t need to be re-supplied so often as a more conventional product that may last only two days before it grows stale. The long-life product can be supplied in larger batches, with longer gaps between deliveries.

Fewer deliveries means fewer road miles, lower fuel costs and fewer demands on HGV drivers, whose time can then be used more productively, making other essential rounds. Importantly, it also means fewer associated carbon emissions.

It can of course be argued that short-life products can be frozen. That’s true, but that brings its own challenges. First, it requires the use of more expensive (and scarcer) refrigerated vehicles. At a time like this, that in itself can give rise to bottlenecks in distribution and to gaps on retailers’ shelves.

Second, those refrigerated vehicles are considerably heavier and more energy-hungry. That means higher fuel costs and a more significant carbon footprint – both of which retailers are generally anxious to avoid.

Long-Life Products and Energy Costs

The impact of rising energy costs isn’t just felt on the roads, of course. Once delivered, frozen products must be kept frozen until they are required for sale. That puts additional demands on industrial freezers, in terms of both storage space and electrical power.

By contrast, products that can be kept and displayed at ambient temperatures make no such demands and incur no such additional costs.

The Waste-Minimisation Trend

Products with longer shelf lives unquestionably help to reduce waste but, given the current economic climate, customers aren’t just looking at the problems of waste product and waste packaging. Energy, fuel and labour resources are all important considerations and their costs are rising steadily, so waste minimisation is essential here, too.

Longer-life products offer distinct advantages in this regard and clients are increasingly recognising their advantages. And these advantages aren’t only limited to road miles and refrigeration. Obviating the need for freezing also obviates the need for the labour-intensive process of removal, thawing and preparing for display. Similarly, longer-life products require less frequent inspections and stock-rotation on the shelves.

In short, there is a clear commercial benefit in moving towards products with longer shelf lives, and rising costs are making the case even stronger.

On the evening of 21^st October 2021, members of the Simply Doughnuts team attended the Baking Industry Awards at the Royal Lancaster hotel in London. We had entered under the Team of the Year category and we were naturally delighted to be announced as the winners.

The Awards featured 13 categories in all, and had attracted finalists of all types and sizes, ranging from small independent bakeries to major multiples and exporters. Our operations manager, Evita Dambrauska, collected the award on behalf of Simply Doughnuts.

The entry process had required details of many different aspects of our work: our products, policies, history and operations. Amongst other topics, questions covered staff communications, reporting procedures, quality control, sustainability measures and our approach to innovation.

The event was presented by TV personality, dancer and author, Craig Revel Horwood. The hosts remarked upon the very high standard of entries and commented that the Awards themselves set out “to acknowledge the skills, creativity and business acumen of the thriving UK baking sector.”

Speaking after the announcement, Evita said: “I’m really pleased to accept this award on behalf of the whole Simply Doughnuts team. Communication, skills and teamwork are all at the heart of what we do. Many of our previous awards have been about products, innovation and sustainability, but this is an award that recognises the efforts that people make right across our organisation. It’s for everyone here, and there is something very special about that.”

The full list of winners can be seen here.

Note:

Simply Doughnuts would also like to extend its thanks to the awards judges and to the category sponsor, Unifiller. In particular, we’d like to thank the company’s sales manager Simon Lawton-Hayes, for all his help with the organisation and logistics. The evening went very well and the sponsors’ contributions did not go unnoticed.

Since the easing of lockdown restrictions, the Covid pandemic might not have captured quite so many headlines as it once did, but staff in the NHS continue to battle with it, and to help people with countless other health conditions, too.

That’s why, when we were approached recently by East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, we were more than happy to make a product donation to show our appreciation for their work.

We made the donation to the Staff Wellbeing Team, backing a project to support staff in the Emergency Department. The doughnuts went into “wellbeing bags”, which were given to staff to promote wellbeing, relaxation, self-care and time out.

As the Community Fundraiser for ELHT&Me (the official charity for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust) remarked: “Something as small as a sweet treat can be just the pick-me-up that teams who are working under extreme pressures may need.

“Your donation was a huge morale-boost for our hardworking colleagues during what has been an extremely difficult time.”

We are, of course, proud to support the NHS and to show recognition for its continuing, invaluable work.

On the night of 21st September, we were delighted to hear that, a little over a year since we began our relationship with Bobby’s Foods, the company had picked up the ‘Product Launch of the Year’ award at the 2021 Retail Industry Awards.

Bobby’s was named winner of the Grocery category in recognition of the success of its retail launch of our Classic Mini Ring Doughnuts, available in store under our special co-branding: “7 Mini Classics.”

 

The award was accepted by Bobby’s Foods National Sales Manager, John Lucas. Also attending were company Director Dave Suckling and Commercial Director Jon Platts.

We were thrilled by the news and we congratulate the Bobby’s team for a well-deserved win. We’re now looking forward to many years of continued partnership.

Many thanks to all those who voted.

On 13th August, we heard that Simply Doughnuts had been named as a finalist in the Baking Industry Awards 2021. The event is organised by the well-known British Baker magazine.

We were shortlisted under the Team of the Year category.

Besides the usual award submission form, finalists are also selected on the basis of a site visit by the award judges and sponsors. We welcomed the judges just a few weeks previously and during their tour they remarked on the efficiency of our operation and communications.

The full list of finalists can be found  on the Baking Industry Awards website.

The award evening itself will take place on Thursday 21 October at the Royal Lancaster in London.

At the end of July, Simply Doughnuts added another prestigious award to its growing collection.

The 2021 Made in the North West Awards took place on the evening of Wednesday 28 July at the Lowry Hotel in Salford. During the event, judges announced Simply Doughnuts as the winner of the Food & Drink Award category.

They noted that, as a company, we were “intriguing, committed to sourcing local ingredients and really innovative.”

Organisers commented that the event, which was held in partnership with the Department for International Trade, “acknowledged and celebrated the cream of North West manufacturing, who are among the most pioneering and dynamic in the world.”

The Food & Drink Award was one of the two most hotly contested categories on the night, featuring a total of eight finalists.

“We’re delighted to have been named as a winner,” said Simply Doughnuts founder and managing director Shiraz Master. “The last two years have been challenging by anyone’s standards, and we – like everyone else –  have been busy adapting our strategies to cope with the pandemic. I’m very proud of the efforts that everyone in the Simply Doughnuts team have made over this period, and this latest award is very much a recognition of all that hard work.”

At the beginning of July 2021, British newspapers and trade magazines ran stories about how a national shortage of HGV drivers has been causing severe supply chain disruption across the UK.

On 1^st July, for example, The Grocer wrote that “A host of major food and drink manufacturers have issued warnings to their retail and wholesale customers over their service levels as the impact of the driver shortage becomes more tangible.”

On the following day, the BBC reported that a combination of Brexit and the Covid pandemic has led to a shortage of 60,000 lorry drivers. As a result, the country is now witnessing a reduced availability of many common foodstuffs as well as other commodities including fuel.

Supermarkets have issued notices to suppliers noting delays of up to 12 hours in distribution depots and warning that short shelf-life products might be at particular risk.

The present difficulties highlight an important advantage of products with extended shelf lives. If a product has a shelf-life of just 48 hours and it spends 12 of those delayed at a distribution centre, then it’s clear that retailers will face greatly increased risks of that product spoiling before sale. Thus, it’s unsurprising that supermarkets and other retailers are expressing concerns about short-lived products such as bread, fresh cakes, sandwiches and confectionery.

By contrast, longer-lived products minimise those risks and allow business to continue much more as normal. In the case of our doughnuts, 12 hours in a distribution centre is only a small fraction of their 27-day minimum shelf-life, and should create negligible additional risk.

The UK’s present distribution challenges, coupled with a general increase in awareness about the need for waste-minimisation, are all helping to highlight the commercial and environmental benefits associated with longer shelf-life products.

In the week before National Doughnut Week (11 to 18 May) we received an enquiry from Birchwood Park in Warrington, a business park that’s home to over 165 enterprises. The management team wanted to celebrate by giving out doughnuts to the staff working at the park.

We were, of course, delighted to help, and quickly set about organising a special delivery of mini rings. They were delivered to the site on 12^th May, and the team at Birchwood lost no time in distributing them to the various firms and workers. Their efforts soon made it onto Twitter, and we’re grateful to the team for sharing some of their photos with us.

We’re also very glad to hear that they went down so well.

Special ‘international days’ are great tools for raising awareness about important issues, and two of them appeared on the calendar for April 2021.

The first was Earth Day on 22 April, which set out to promote and celebrate efforts to improve sustainability and reduce our collective impact on the planet.

Food Waste in the Air

One of the organisations that was keen to respond was the World Travel Catering Expo, which on 14^th April, published an article about “the need for airlines to reduce food waste on board.” It begins with an assertion that is impossible to refute:

“The environmental case for tackling food waste is increasingly hard to ignore. Unconsumed food, including losses at pre-consumer levels, is associated with 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions according to United Nations calculations.”

Waste in the airline industry has both commercial and environmental costs. According to the report, “up to 5.7 million tonnes of cabin waste was carried up into the air and brought back down again in 2017. Up to a quarter of that waste was untouched food and beverages.” That equates to an estimated $3.9 billion worth of waste that was either incinerated or sent to landfill.

United Nations Food Waste Report

One of the article’s sources is the United Nations Environment Programme’s UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021. It notes that “reducing food waste at retail, food service and household level can provide multi-faceted benefits for both people and the planet (but) the opportunities provided by food waste reduction have remained largely untapped and under-exploited.”

Waste, Stock Management & Shelf Life

This under-exploitation of waste-minimisation opportunities certainly rings true for those of us in the food / bakery industry. In a recent news article, we mentioned research recently published by the waste-reduction specialist Too Good to Go. That included the startling statistic that over 70% of bakery businesses have no stock management in place to reduce food waste. It’s shocking because, of all the waste-related challenges that the world faces, having proper management systems in place is one of the easiest to address.

The same research also suggests that short shelf lives are directly or indirectly associated with over 60% of all reported food waste losses. Clearly, putting a greater emphasis on the longevity of products would make an important contribution to meeting global sustainability goals.

Longer shelf lives mean a reduced risk of food spoiling before sale – so they reduce retailers’ costs – but they also give consumers more time to eat, share or store their foods, so waste is also reduced downstream, at the consumer end of the process. Both have an essential role to play in meeting international targets.

Stop Food Waste Day

The scale of the global food waste problem is one of the topics of another high-profile date on the calendar: Wednesday 28th April, also known as ‘Stop Food Waste Day.’

The website lists some shocking figures:

• 33% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted every year
• 45% of root crops, fruit and vegetables produced globally are lost or wasted every year
• 25% of the food wasted globally could feed all 795 million undernourished people in the world
• 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions each year are due to food loss and waste

As well as doing an important job of raising awareness, the website also features some excellent recipes for making delicious use of leftovers, case studies showing how companies have reduced their waste, and a toolkit, which includes digital food waste guides and other “downloadable resources to help raise awareness and inspire change about this global issue.”

Waste-Reduction: Next Steps

As a food manufacturer ourselves, we’ve invested considerable resources into extending product shelf lives but we know that the job doesn’t end here. We’re still engaged in R&D work to extend shelf lives further and to apply similar technologies to other foods, which should offer similar waste-saving characteristics.

We’ve also devoted time and effort to reducing our water and energy consumption in the manufacturing process, and we’ve taken important strides in reducing the volumes of product packaging that we produce. That work continues and we hope to make further announcements shortly.

Spreading the word is also vital, which is why, in April 2021, we were delighted to work with the global sustainability consultancy Anthesis. It has been writing up a case study explaining how we have reduced waste across our operations and how we have encouraged further product and packaging waste reductions throughout our supply chain. The resulting article will be published via a food industry intranet, where we hope it will inspire other producers to find new ways to reduce their environmental impacts.

On 8^th April, Bakery & Snacks magazine published an article featuring research from the food waste-minimisation specialist Too Good to Go. It highlighted the alarming levels of waste produced within the bakery sector and identified some of the principal reasons why foods get thrown away uneaten.

According to the research, 33% of respondents reported that the short shelf-lives of their products “play a big role in waste” and a further 31% reported that losses were often due to weather-related changes in demand. In effect, when demand dips, products with shorter shelf-lives often have to be discarded if they cannot be safely stored.

From these findings, it seems that poor shelf-lives are a factor in well over half of all cases of food waste. Worryingly, the research also suggested that over 70% of bakery businesses have no stock management in place to reduce food waste.

Commenting on the findings, Simply Doughnuts MD Shiraz Master said: “If these figures are even close to the truth, they indicate a shocking level of waste within the industry as a whole.

“Businesses could and should be doing more. They can start to address the problem by investing more R&D effort into developing longer shelf-lives for their products. This was our ethos from day one, and it’s been a cornerstone of our success ever since. Retailers are increasingly aware of the need to minimise waste, so it’s short-sighted of any manufacturer to ignore the issue.

“Even worse is the idea that fewer than 30% of bakery businesses have any significant waste minimisation policies in place. Waste isn’t just bad in social and environmental terms; it’s also a direct cost for any business, so it’s astonishing that so few businesses are treating it seriously. The challenge of minimising food waste is only going to attract more attention in the coming years and the winners are going to be the manufacturers that do the most to address it.”

Based on feedback from major retail clients, Simply Doughnuts products achieve some of the lowest food waste scores in the industry. The company has also worked closely with the environmental specialist ENWORKS and other consultants to identify numerous ways to reduce food waste, water-use and energy consumption across all its manufacturing operations.

The company’s efforts to reduce waste and to extend shelf-lives have been the basis for its numerous awards in recent years, including the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation category) and, most recently, the Bakery Manufacturing Company of the Year in the 2021 Food Manufacture Excellence Awards.