Bread is one of the staples nearly every household in America keeps on hand. As part of the team that takes grain from the field and turns it into the loaves we know and love, you must understand why a consumer might choose your brand over another, or vice versa. While taste and texture may be of the utmost importance to you, appearance is also crucial. That's why HunterLab wants to help you make sure every loaf you distribute is the right color for sale.
Buyers want their bread to be the right color. If it's too light, they may have concerns about it being too doughy or even raw. Too dark, and they may think the loaf is burnt and won't taste good. Furthermore, if all your breads aren't uniform on the shelf, it may lead people to think your process isn't working correctly, which leads to further questions about your product's integrity.
In short, you need a process that produces bread of the same quality and color every time that both contributes to brand identity and caters to consumer preferences.
While foods like bread do not have a set quality assurance process that helps regular factors like color, it can still be highly beneficial for your facility to have a color management team that uses tools like spectrophotometers to gauge color. Spectrophotometers measure color using precise measurements like hex codes or RGB numbers to maintain consistency from batch to batch. This equipment will help you stay confident in the color of your bread even when your process changes.
When discussing the color of bread and how it pertains to consistency and freshness, another thing every brand should keep in mind is tie packaging. Most loaves of bread come in plastic bags with a colored tie to preserve freshness. However, the color of the tie is also dependent on the day it was produced. While some smaller bakeries may use different codings, consumers have been taught to recognize that these colors mean the bread was baked on these days:
Even the most well-oiled machine can produce a result you don't expect. Make sure every loaf you distribute comes out the way you want it to with HunterLab's MiniScan EZ 4500. This powerful spectrophotometer is compact and delivers results in seconds. Request a quote today and see how it works up close.
Mr. Philips has spent the last 30 years in product development and management, technical sales, marketing, and business development in several industries. Today, he is the global market development manager for HunterLab, focused on understanding customer needs, providing appropriate solutions and education, and helping to solve customer color challenges across these industries and cultures.LinkedIn