Necessity is the mother-dough of inventions

ARYZTA AG I PROFILE

ARYZTA AG is a Bakery company with a global reach holding a leadership position in the convenience bakery sector. Headquartered in Switzerland the company has operations in Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. With roots dating back over a century, ARYZTA has shown unparalleled capabilities in the baking industry with products including artisan breads, pastries, cookies, donuts, muffins, buns and so much more. Jordan Yallop reports.

IT all begins with the finest ingre dients – along with bakers and chefs whose top priorities are great taste, consistency, and creating memorable foods for consumers. Owing to this, ARYZTA AG aims to be the preferred baking partner for customers across the retail, foodservice and convenience sectors.

With a heritage dating back to the 19th century, initially plying its trade as an agricultural wholesaler in Ireland, the combination of fine ingredients and high quality products have been mixed, kneaded, proved and baked into the business for generations.

Created following the merger of Hiestand Holdings AG and IAWS plc in 2008, ARYZTA (derived from arista, the Latin term for beard of grain or the point on the ear of wheat), holds a leadership position in the convenience bakery sector.

“ARYZTA is an international business dedicated to local market needs that empowers local leadership teams and creates value for our customers,” described Anthony Proctor, Managing Director of ARYZTA Ireland/UK.

“This multi-local approach allows us to have a very simple structure which facilitates fast decision making to address our local customers’ needs. Our bakery heritage and expertise delivers gold standard quality food through customer focused trustworthy partnerships.”

Going back to go forward

While the success and growth that ARYZTA has achieved can be attributed to the development of state-of-the-art bakeries, and by utilising the combined expertise of innovative teams in areas ranging from culinary research to engineering, the company has adopted a retrospective approach to its innovation.

Mr Proctor said: “Current trends in bakery have been leading consumers back to traditional tastes and values. Consumers want bread products that have a high nutritional value which have been produced under authentic and time-honoured baking methods. Our sourdough products honour the essential elements for authentic sourdough production.

“We use a live perpetual starter which has been grown, used and regenerated for over 30 years and which gives the ARYZTA sourdough product its unique and recognisable flavour. This combination of long fermentation and resting times, means ARYZTA has the ability to produce authentic sourdough bread – both efficiently and in high volumes while adhering to the highest food safety and quality standards.”

As a result, ARYZTA’s customers get both traditional baking methods and the precise standardisation of modern manufacturing – truly the best of both worlds.

Next-generation baking

While ARYZTA operates 22 bakeries across Europe from Holland to Romania and a further 10 locations across the rest of the world, Mr Proctor was keen to highlight the company’s endeavours in the UK and Irish markets.

ARYZTA Ireland/UK employs over 500 highly skilled people, many of whom are based at the main manufacturing facility located at Grange Castle. Upon opening in 2008, the new bakery incorporated stateof-the-art production, automated warehouse solutions and a centre of excellence for both innovation and R&D.

The mammoth site is comprised of 45,500 sqm of facilities and required an initial investment of approximately €195 million. However, the facility has continued to evolve since it was established.

“We are delighted to announce that we are in the final stages of completing the installation of a new speciality bread manufacturing plant at Grange Castle,” Mr Proctor revealed. “The investment, which includes a significant expansion of our state-of-the-art live sourdough starter plant, will result in a doubling of capacity for the production of sourdough and speciality breads.”

Recent years have seen demand for sourdough grow significantly to the point the company is expanding production capabilities to satiate public demand. The expansion will also allow for greater research and development into new products for the ever more complex tastes of the Irish and UK consumer.

In 2020, the business took the decision to step change its French bread production at the Grange Castle bakery which saw the installation of baking capability for what ARYZTA describes as ‘next generation stress free French bread’. This aims to produce the highest quality French bread available on the market today.

When speaking about ARYZTA Ireland/ UK, Mr Proctor said he was proud of three things most of all: “Our products, in particular our sourdough and speciality bread combined with our next generation French bread. I would confidently put these products up against any competitive product as being best in market.

“Second is our people. We have a team which are highly skilled and highly committed to the goal of being the best in

ARYZTA AG I PROFILE

market and it makes me very proud to work alongside these colleagues.”

He added: “Third is our customers. Over many years we have built excellent working relationships with our customers, and they have supported us through many challenging times. While we will always be proud of our products and service, it is important that we approach our customer relationships with humility and always be prepared to listen to the feedback we receive, while looking for opportunities to deliver success for our customers.”

Sustainability culture

Mr Proctor also stated that sustainability is high on ARYZTA’s agenda and that he likes to think that Ireland/UK is ahead of the curve in this respect, starting with the construction of the Grange Castle site.

This site was built to sustainable specifications including double skin glazing on the office buildings and the centre of excellence to minimise the need for air conditioning. All elements of the site have been constructed to minimise energy usage with high coefficient of performance.

At the front of the office building is a manmade pond, where all the rainwater on site is fed to. This doubles as both an attractive aesthetic and as an attenuation reservoir that feeds the site’s sprinkler system.

Aryzta Ireland/UK is a founding members of CIRCULEIRE – The National Platform for Circular Manufacturing. This private-public partnership aims to take manufacturers and their supply-chains on a journey from linear to circular business models through business case development and “deep demonstration innovation projects”.

The journey to premiumise

ARYZTA Ireland/UK operates across three channels: convenience retail, retail multiples and foodservice. There are several brands under the ARYZTA label in these markets.

“Our primary brand is Cuisine de France, which recently celebrated 32 years in the Irish market,” remarked Mr Proctor. “It is primarily an Irish business and is very much synonymous with bakery and convenience bakery in the Irish market.”

ARYZTA Ireland/UK is extremely proud of the Cuisine de France brand, said Mr Proctor. It was conceived as a way to introduce French breads to the burgeoning Irish market. As a result of this, customer loyalty, and brand recognition remain constantly high.

Other brands include a high-end foodservice channel under the Coup de Pates range and the savoury hot food category called Pierre’s. ARYZTA is also the distribution and supply partner for Seattle’s Best Coffee which, again, serves the Irish market.

Anthony Proctor, Managing Director of ARYZTA Ireland/UK

A large portion of ARYZTA’s product is also supplied to the private label market. Over decades the company has built up significant trust and close working relationships with customers when supplying bespoke bakery solutions.

But one of the most important decisions the company has made in recent years is premiumisation.

Mr Proctor said: “Three years ago, we embarked on what we call the ‘journey to premiumise’. Simply put, we recognised that consumer tastes and expectation, when it came to bakery products, were changing. Customer focus on nutritional value had increased significantly with demand increasing for fiber, seeds, grains, and most of all, sourdough.

“With strong year-on-year growth in demand for high-end, specialty breads, this was clearly the sector which is most relevant for us. From our Grange Castle site, we continue to increase our bakery export to serve a growing number of UK customers. Clearly a business model to export low value commodity bread would never be attractive, therefore our business will continue to focus on high quality differentiate products that give our customers exactly what they need,” he concluded. n