Although many bakers are celebrating the opportunity to focus on specialty products, it can pose new challenges. When sealed in a traditional poly bag with a twist-tie, bread products can have a very short shelf-life. Particularly for small and mid-sized bakeries, this can create strict limitations on where they can sell their products – and how far they can grow their business.

Cryovac’s new Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) for bakery, which extends the shelf-life of baked goods, offers key advantages for small or independent processors, according to Sealed Air Food Care, which introduced its new Cryovac Modified Atmosphere Packaging for Bakery at the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association’s annual conference in June.

Now, a bakery’s growth is no longer inhibited by the number of days it takes to ship product to a certain market or geography. And food retailers can carry a wider variety of specialty breads because the potential for costly stales is lower, according to Sealed Air.

Specialty breads with higher price points can experience lower sales velocity at retail stores, and can suffer 15-20% stale rates.

Now, Sealed Air and Reiser are joining forces to provide solutions that help bakeries extend the shelf-life of their clean label products without sacrificing quality. Sealed Air’s Cryovac Modified Atmosphere Packaging extends the shelf-life of baked goods for up to 40 days, according to the company, while Reiser, a trusted name in the bakery industry for more than 20 years, provides the necessary equipment to package bread right off the line. Together, the two companies provide a total packaging solution that can be tested at bakeries for a period of time before making the final purchasing decision.

This partnership, which began in 2013, means processors get a total packaging solution that combines Cryovac’s state-of-the-art active barrier film with Reiser’s bakery equipment to package bread right off the line.

 “Many times, customers can’t thoroughly envision how switching to new equipment will impact their operations, and that can make the risk of changing seem too great,” says John McIsaac, vice president of Strategic Business Development at Reiser. “Delivering a machine for a trial, tooled up for their specific processes, helps us not only demonstrate the enormous benefits of these innovations to our customers in a tangible way, but it proves our collective dedication to their success. And that makes a powerful difference.”