Abe Faber

Coady: At Finale, my philosophy is that it's about quality ingredients. It's butter; it's cream; it's sugar — there aren't chemicals in them. Everything starts with a simple quality ingredient, and then it's how you build [the formula].

Lau: We are a high-volume producer. Our products can be affordable for the general public because we're able to buy a large volume of flour. We have less labor involved.

As I said, we have a range of products. We also have a hundred percent whole grain, no preservatives, all natural, clean label — as close as what I would say a handmade product would be.

But we continue to look at what can we do to take out our artificial ingredients and still deliver the product. That's where technology comes in. As nutrition science advances, we are able to understand what products we should be eating more or less. As food science and food technology evolves, there are additional ingredients that are considered to be natural, that have the same benefits as the ingredients that are not natural today.

MB: How can you work toward a more collaborative approach with your ingredient suppliers?

Bakery leaders, from large wholesale operations to small retail businesses, discussed what drives innovation, and how to maintain sales during an economic recession.

Lau: We constantly search for partnerships with our ingredient suppliers to deliver the benefits of the performance of functionality in our finished products.

We search for suppliers that have state-of-the-art technology, but also the best in class in terms of the investment. They're willing to commit to the technology that's under development.

Faber: We're actually having some issues with our flour, and I was on the phone with the head of quality control with [a major flour supplier]. And I would just encourage everyone else out there, no matter how small your business, find the phone number of people who are flour mill techs or quality control people at a chocolate company. They're thrilled to talk to you. They're thrilled to talk to the end user of the product.

Go visit the mill. Visit the place making your butter. Visit these facilities because these companies want to know what's good for their customers.