The roundtable included: (top to bottom) Ramon Zayas, production manager, Holland Farms Bakery and Deli, Yorkville, N.Y.; Dan “Klecko” McGleno, C.E.O., St. Agnes Baking Co., St. Paul, Minn.; Dale Schurman, co-owner, Cold Spring Bakery, Cold Spring, Minn.; Cynthia Daube, owner, Daube’s Bakery, Rochester, Minn.

In the wake of trans fat regulation and consumers' demand for “cleaner,” more natural products, bakers are looking for ways to reformulate products while maintaining product quality. The trends influencing bakery products include whole grains, natural sweeteners and preservatives, and sourcing ingredients locally. However, the challenges of these products do not stop at formulation.

How to market the new ingredients and products to customers can be just as difficult as the formulation process, but may be even more important. Customers won't know what you are doing unless you tell them, and several baking industry leaders, from retail to foodservice to specialty wholesale operators, talked about formulating, marketing and other trends during a recent roundtable discussion moderated by Modern Baking. The National Honey Board sponsored the event and excerpts from the conversation follow.

MB: How are dietary concerns affecting your product line?

Dale Schurman: We've noticed a big change on the whole grain side. We were making hamburger buns and different dinner buns out of our cracked wheat bread, and we have switched to a 50/50 whole wheat bun. It's been about a year now, and we've noticed that they are picking up in sales.

Cynthia Daube: Everyone wants a five-grain bread or how ever many grains you need. We had already been making 100 percent whole wheat flax bread. And I had pretty good sales. So, we tried a five-grain bread; it is 2-to-1 in sales — outsells everything. It's a half-wheat/half-white bread with grains added. It has a seltzer and a sour. It's easy to make, and it has taken off. We're making it twice a week, and we may need to add one more day.

MB: What about trans fats? Have you reformulated your products?

Daube: My whole bakery is no trans fat, but I had very few customer requests for no trans fat. I did it anyway because I thought it was the right thing to do. I'm not using palm oil — my muffins have always been oil based. The reason I did it is I thought when people buy a muffin, they think they're buying something better or more healthful than a Danish. If they're buying a Danish, they know they've got a big number of calories and a high-fat item. But we happen to use butter. Recently, I switched to using some lard and the line for pineapple fritters was out the door.

Dan “Klecko” McGleno: We chose to switch over because it was the provocative issue in early 2008. I was getting cubes of trans fat-free shortenings for only an additional $5. We didn't even pass the cost on. We used it, we advertised, the whole deal. Customers wanted us to do it because they wanted to be hip and trendy. But, eight months later when flour prices quadrupled, it was the last thing on anyone's mind. After the commodity scare, the trans fat issue lost some luster.

Ramon Zayas: We ran a trans fat-free chocolate cake for six months — everything I introduce, I run it for six months to give it a fair shot. The majority of my customers were like, “No, we will settle for trans fat-made products. We don't want the non-trans fat.” The chocolate cake dried out so much faster. We switched back.