29 Mar Collaborations and Partnerships

Back in January, BEMA introduced its 2021-2023 Strategic Plan. Our Alliances and Partnerships focus, the third of our four-pillar strategic plan, offers a collective opportunity to define industry needs as well as provide our baker partners and supplier members with a platform to refine what the baking industry could look like in the future.

Alliances and Partnerships

This month, BEMA and some of its members had the opportunity to demonstrate the power of sharing and the influence of partnerships and collaboration at two industry events.

During the international iba Connecting Experts virtual lecture series, I had the opportunity to highlight the outlook of the industry for 2021 with Robb MacKie of ABA; moderate an automation panel of industry robotics experts that included Craig Souser, Rick Hoskins and John Keane; and, explored the latest in effective sanitation methods from Baking Industry Forum member Karl Thorson.

At the ABA Virtual Convention the following week, I joined Rick Hoskins, Bill Livingstone and Daniel van der Have for the closing session to discuss the new frontier of bakery manufacturing.

Both of these events brought home the many ways the industry is working together to meet the changing demands of consumers through the sharing of information and resources. This teamwork will remain critical as our members navigate evolving consumer demands while simultaneously dealing with workforce recruitment and retention, ensuring employee safety and exploring how automation can boost success in a new business landscape.

Disruption as the Norm

As we’ve learned over the past year, life might never be quite the same. With this in mind, our collaborations serve as a way to refocus and realign, creating a proactive path that’s insight-driven and responsive. We see evidence of this nearly every day as we share ideas over Zoom, tune into educational roundtables and webinars and take part in industry events that remind us why we can believe in bakery.

Each day, I see amazing things happening in the industry, and this could not happen without the willingness of our industry partners to share their processes and their successes and failures so that others can benefit from their learnings.

Accelerating Path

Acknowledging that life and business will continue to pick up speed, it’s incredibly important we are diligent in finding new ways to effectively collaborate. In doing so, we can create more opportunities to make each of our businesses more disruption-proof as we reconsider how business gets done, boosting financial and operational strength for everyone in the industry.

At BEMA, we’ll be there to assist in the journey by elevating our value through offerings of innovative education, training and professional development. As we prepare to wrap up Q1 of 2021, we see bright opportunities ahead as we work to create resilience and success together. Step-by-step and conversation-by-conversation, we are rebuilding our industry to be more resilient, more collaborative and more sustainable.