Commercial and Retail Bakeries NAICS 311811, 311812

Dec 20, 2025 - Ensuring Consistent Quality

• Consistent production of quality baked goods requires the precise balance of major and micro ingredients, with even small errors, especially with concentrated inputs, leading to waste, inconsistent texture, or even food safety issues, reports BakingBusiness.com. Unfortunately, with fewer skilled bakers around today to make on‑the‑fly adjustments, the risk of batch‑to‑batch variation is rising. Pre‑formulated mixes and blends can solve this problem by providing pre‑scaled, application‑specific ingredient systems that ensure accuracy every time. Many are designed to be added as complete bags directly into the mixer, thereby reducing handling steps and minimizing human error. Consistency cuts costs tied to rework and ingredient waste while simplifying inventory management. By standardizing precision, mixes and blends also give bakeries the confidence to expand into new or more complex product categories, such as artisan or specialty items, without requiring additional technical expertise.
• Falling prices for wheat, which recently hit five-year lows, and rising input costs have made the crop unsustainable for many US growers, crop insurance provider ProAg reports. Across the heartland, wheat farming is in steep decline as low prices, prolonged droughts, and global competition push farmers to abandon the crop. Once the dominant crop from Texas to Montana, hard red winter (HRW) wheat is no longer profitable for many growers. With prices for HRW wheat, favored by bakers for bread, hovering around $5 per bushel, some US wheat farmers have reached an inflection point, with many forced to either lose money, feed wheat to cattle, or kill off the crop. In states like Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, farmers are turning wheat fields into pastures, hay, or replacing them with more profitable crops like corn and soybeans.

• Tariffs on imports from the US’s top three trading partners are expected to cost the baking industry about $454 million this year, according to the American Bakers Association (ABA). This figure includes $244 million due to a 25% tariff on imported ingredients such as flour blends and sweeteners from Canada, $170 million due to tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, and $40 million from a 10% tariffs on Chinese goods, according to ABA. Also, a 125% tariff levied on certain imports from China in April to curb US reliance on foreign manufacturing is raising the cost of packaging and baking equipment. In July, President Trump threatened to raise the tariff on goods from Canada to 35%, with an exemption for goods that comply with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement applying for now, according to the White House.
• Producer prices for retail bakeries rose 4.8% in September compared to a year ago, after posting a flat previous September-versus-September annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Industry producer prices at retail bakeries were at a record high in September amid rising costs for ingredients, labor, and other inputs. Employment by bread and bakery product manufacturers dipped 0.5% year over year in August, while the average industry wage rose 4% over the same period to a new high of $23.26 per hour, BLS data show.