Long-Term Freshness Can Help Boost Perimeter Aisle Product Sales

Consumers are often encouraged to “shop the perimeter” of the grocery store to fill their baskets with healthier options than might be found in the interior aisles, which typically include more processed foods. And shoppers are taking the advice: Perimeter product sales increased by 7.4% from 2022 to 2023, for an estimated $277 billion in sales, according to data from research firm Circana.

While the outside aisles usually feature healthy foods like fruits and vegetables, they also contain popular bakery items such as cookies, muffins, and brownies. And as grocery stores continue to focus on maximizing sales in their outside aisles, they’re interested in boosting the freshness of their baked goods.

“Consumers want muffins, cupcakes, and cookies to maintain that just-baked freshness for more than a day or two,” says Stephanie Miller, senior marketing manager at Grande Custom Ingredients Group. “Manufacturers as well as grocers are interested in improving the quality through the shelf life of their baked goods so that they retain moisture and still taste delicious for several days.”

In July 2024, Grande introduces its newest ingredient product, specifically developed to boost the taste, texture, and sensory experience throughout the shelf life of outer-aisle grocery store bakery products. Grande DURATO 100, a whey protein concentrate that is uniquely formulated for use in sweet, chemically leavened bakery products, supports moisture maintenance, leading to better eating quality throughout shelf life.

Bakery Products Need a Refresh

Grande built a reputation over the past 100 years as a maker of high-quality, white Italian cheeses for independent pizzerias. “Making all that cheese results in a lot of whey, and we use it to make clean label commodity and specialty products such as ingredients for soups and sauces,” Miller says.

Through current customers, Grande learned of a need for a product to extend the shelf life of baked goods and avoid the hardening and drying out of cookies, muffins, and brownies, says Kate Petrie, manager, applied technology at Grande. The company conducted research in five countries to investigate the need and found that shelf-life extension for bakery products is highly valuable and a critical factor in component selection.

Based on Grande research, grocery store bakery products face shelf-life challenges including staling and food safety. They found that grocers want unique ingredients at a competitive price to enhance their bakery products, and products that include less processed ingredients are in high demand.

External research confirmed the trend. According to Mintel, “texture” in food and beverage is the “new secret trend.” Consumers want the texture of baked goods to suggest an indulgent experience within the sweet bakery category: 86% of consumers prefer soft/bendy cookies, while only 7% prefer crunchy/crispy cookies.

While grocery store baked goods might have a soft texture on the first or second day, they often harden after a few to several days. With a history of developing natural, whey-based products to meet specific ingredient needs, Grande scientists accepted the challenge to help extend the tasty shelf life of grocery store baked goods.

Meeting the Need

“To expand our capabilities, we looked to see how we could identify shelf-life issues and solve for them by making a product that provided a positive eating experience, not just on the first day but throughout the shelf life of bakery products so they wouldn’t have to be eaten right away,” Petrie says.

Petrie’s team relies on a unique process to produce Grande Durato. It’s a completely physical process without chemical modification and maintains the single ingredient of whey protein, with no additives and no other ingredients.

The result is Grande Durato 100, a unique ingredient with a hydrating mechanism that can be used in sweet baked goods like cookies and muffins and can replace dairy ingredients like nonfat dry milk. “We have a unique proprietary process that allows the end ingredients to hold moisture upon processing,” Petrie says. “It sucks up moisture and develops viscosity and is stable across a wide range of pH levels. Durato does not change the taste of the end baked good, but it improves the fresh-baked, golden browning appeal of home-baked items and enhances the variance in texture between the inside and the outside.”

Grande recently completed testing of Durato 100 in cookies. The new ingredient was incorporated with sugar and shortening to make cookie dough, which was divided into individual pucks and frozen prior to baking, alongside a batch of typical cookie dough without Durato 100. Throughout the bake time, the Durato 100 cookies retained greater than 5% more moisture than the control group. And after baking, the Durato 100 cookies retained moisture throughout their shelf life.

A trained sensory panel scored hardness of the cookies on a 10-point scale, in which 0=softest and 9=hardest. In cookies with Durato, hardness scored significantly lower than the control cookie. The Durato three-day-old cookie was described as 33% softer.

Not only were the cookies with Durato softer, but they also better maintained their shape through the baking process. Across nine dozen of various cookie types, Durato cookies spread 4% less than the control group.

Continuing a Legacy

Introducing a specialty ingredient to preserve freshness and moisture in baked goods is just the latest development for Grande, which has a long history of finding unique ways to minimize waste by producing value.

“All cheese companies have a waste stream, but they don’t all use it to develop other products,” Petrie says. “We’ve been doing this since the 1990s. It’s a really great milk source because of the type of white Italian cheese we produce. We have cows on dedicated farms within a few miles of our manufacturing facility.”

Grande has long used a proprietary, chemical-free production process, and has developed a unique emphasis on specialty ingredients. That process physically alters the whey protein to make a difference in its performance. “We don’t use protein fortification,” Petrie says. “The functional, value-added part is not related to protein. It’s a texture, water-holding, clean cheese process. We’re not developing a typical, commoditized whey product. Our unique process is what allows us to bring value to these new applications.”ft