Muffins for Foodservice: A Case Study

How a beloved restaurant brand secured their supply chain — and their

profits — with PDM Muffins

The Muffin Challenge:
Mitigating Supply Chain Instability

When this beloved restaurant chain approached CraftMark Bakery in 2020, who could have imagined the rolling supply and commodities shocks that would soon unfold due to a global pandemic? Reliant on a single food service muffin batter supplier, they needed to act fast to onboard a secondary private label muffin manufacturer, one who could manufacture not just tasty muffins, but also could bring new capabilities, efficiencies, and bakery ingredients supply chain expertise to the mix.

The Craftmark Bakery Solution:
Pre-Topped, Pre-Deposited Muffin Batter

After conducting a top to bottom bakery review to understand the customer’s back of house processes and capabilities, CraftMark Bakery rapidly produced muffin samples that were a match for this restaurant’s control muffin. As a bonus, CraftMark also presented several optimized versions to demonstrate how both costs and ingredients supply chain risk could be reduced without impacting the quality of these gourmet muffins — improving program profitability. And lastly, to show off the Muffin Innovation team’s product development capabilities, we also submitted some on-trend innovations.

To the surprise of our customer, preparing these new muffins would take less time than their existing method, due to the convenience of already topped and pre-deposited muffin batter. Previously, the customer had been using a laborious process to customize and garnish muffins. With CraftMark innovation, tremendous labor time was able to be taken out of the equation, leaving only ready-to-bake muffin convenience. Best of all, from a culinary and brand perspective, the new baked goods would be more consistent — coast to coast, across all of the chain’s locations — in size, taste, and finished appearance.

Food Service Muffin Best Practices:
Expertise in Food Commodities & Commercialization

With new muffins approved, CraftMark collaborated with the customer’s supply chain to help with ingredient sourcing and ensure they were getting the best possible prices, and our bakery ingredients commodities expertise was a critical asset to the program’s success. As the pandemic dragged on, and the bakery ingredients supply chain experienced new shocks and disruptions in availability and pricing, CraftMark Bakery continued to optimize the muffin formulas dynamically, ensuring the best possible profitability and a reliable supply of gourmet muffins. The flexibility of our muffin R&D team and our hightech commercial bakery ERP system made it possible to roll with the changes as needed.

And let us not skip over the commercialization process. Because the customer ultimately chose products with an upgraded look and taste from the old formula, it was certain the brand’s loyal superfans would notice a shift. CraftMark Bakery closely collaborated on the details of the commercialization process. Our fast casual foodservice customer tested one SKU first, to ensure customer acceptance, After the new muffin proved successful, we commercialized and launched the other varieties.

Foodservice Muffin Take-Aways:
A Dynamic Private Label Bakery Partner for Unstable Times

The past few years have seen tremendous disruption and instability in the bakery ingredients supply chain and food commodities pricing. While no one could have foreseen the exact circumstances of the past few years, CraftMark Bakery was built to be a modern and dynamic bakery, ready to keep going through unforeseen shocks. Our strategic Midwest bakery location was chosen for its optimal access to both the bakery ingredients supply chain and the foodservice and ISB markets we serve. In fact, 80% of US consumers can be reached within a single day’s drive of our private label bakery. Our ERP-enabled automated bakery technology means we have optimal visibility into ingredients inventory, and our proactive and dynamic Research & Development team is always ready to reformulate when circumstances command it.

It’s about more than just the cliche of “Continuous Improvement” — it comes down to making it happen for our customers, no matter what. Even when the whole world shuts down.

While the customer originally planned to simply add a secondary supplier who could match the old formula, the partnership we forged became so much more than that. The customer was able to upgrade the muffin experience, reduce labor and costs, improve profits, and better secure the reliability of their supply chain, across all their USA locations. It wasn’t long before the customer approached us once more, this time to partner together on a different bakery category.

Pre-Deposited Muffin Batter for Your Foodservice Brand

Leverage the power of pre-deposited muffin batter in your business — PDM Muffins reduce labor, improve consistency, and can deliver better ROI for your restaurant. Contact CraftMark Bakery today to learn more.