How You Can Manage and Extend the Shelf Life of Your Bakery Products?

You make an effort to create the best recipe, control the temperature and bring the product for sale but how many times do you think about the lost/profit margins because of the shorter shelf lifespan of your confectionary?

Extending the shelf life of bakery products is equivalent to increasing the profitability of your business and it’s not difficult to achieve. You just need to add a packaging barrier to provide a controlled environment to your produce and keep their records by scanning the printed bar code on the packaging. 

Let’s get into the detail of how you can manage and extend the shelf life of your bakery products that will help you to earn more profit. 

Employ Bakery Management Software for Inventory Usage 

The freshness of the bakery product depends on the freshness of the raw material. Some materials are expired earlier than others so you need to consume them first. Bakery management software provides you a real-time data to remind you about the expiration of such material. You use those materials to prepare your product on time by considering the date which also assist in reducing wastage. 

Use Packaging Barriers

In the primary packaging, you can use packaging barriers that will limit the interaction of atmospheric oxygen with the baked product. You can also provide a modified atmosphere that helps to retain the freshness and taste of your baked product. The common oxygen barrier used in the packaging is polyvinylidene chloride or ethylene vinyl alcohol. 

Print Bar Code on Packaging 

It’s easy to determine the shelf life of bakery products by printing bar codes on custom bakery packaging boxes. These codes contain information about the freshness and the cost of the product that can be obtained by scanning the code. Without a bar code on the packaging, it will be difficult to keep manage the expiration, it’s most probable you throw your product with others because of a lack of surety about the freshness of the product. 

Replenish the Stock Adequately 

You can use bakery management software to replenish your bakery stock adequately. Around the year the demands for baked products vary as during the festive season your product will sell more.  In consequence, you need to make sure of the constant availability of stock of raw materials on the basis of need. Collect the data for the one-year performance of your bakery and try to draw a graph of raw material requirements, it will help you to buy the right amount without facing the upheaval of wastage due to overstock and shortage in case of understock. 

Minimize Wastage with FIFO Principle 

FIFO is the First in First Out principle that is primarily related to the goods arrangement in the bakery. The goods with the shorter expiry date are put at the front while the longer dates are placed at the back. So more visibility and easy accessibility will increase the selling probability of the front-placed product which is a great way to maximize freshness and minimize waste. 

Conclusion 

Extending the shelf life of bakery products is critical to make your bakery business more profitable and successful. You can increase the baked product’s life by using special barrier packaging that helps to retain the freshness of the products by reducing the interaction of moisture and atmosphere oxygen. Don’t forget to print a bar code on your secondary packaging that assists you to keep a record of your products available in the stock.