Inside the Artisan Marketplace — Crafted by Puratos, during the recent International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE), scores of craft bakers learned to differentiate their breads with one key ingredient: sourdough. Sourdough is a natural leavening ingredient, consisting of yeast and lactic acid bacteria in flour and water. Earlier this year, Puratos shared consumer data from its Taste Tomorrow presentation. Taste Tomorrow is a large-scale global research conducted for Puratos by Ipsos. The goal is to enhance customer knowledge about important consumer trends impacting the bakery, patisserie and chocolate sectors and to provide inspiration for innovative product development.

“We provided the opportunity for bakers to develop their own breads with a personal touch,” said Alejandro Tovar, vice president marketing for Puratos. “According to our research, consumers are willing to pay more (15-20%) for hand-crafted products.”

Craft is steadily becoming a large preference for consumers. But what exactly is craft? The definition of a preference is determined by the consumer. According to Taste Tomorrow, 65% of North American consumers believe that craft is a product made by hand, while 50% believe craft is dependent on an authentic recipe.

In 2013, the company launched the Puratos Sourdough Library in the Center for Bread Flavour in Saint-Vith, Belgium. This location gathers an authentic collection of sourdoughs (of different flavors) from all over the world. More than 700 strains of wild yeast and 1,500 lactic bacteria have been recorded so far.

Puratos offers a range of innovative products for craft bread bakers. Based on natural fermentation, O-tentic enables bakers to produce various breads with one commonality — being highly reminiscent of fresh and extremely high quality. Bakers can create their own special bread by combining O-tentic with Sapore and specialty grains to get the very best of both worlds. Sapore constitutes a range of sourdough and other solutions based on fermentation that offer a differentiating taste.