Less Waste, Higher Margins: How Fast-Response Ranges Improve Profitability

The Main Challenge: Availability Without Overproduction

In any bakery, coffee shop, in-store bakery or foodservice operation, striking the right balance between availability and waste is one of the most delicate daily decisions. Produce too much, and you face shrinkage. Produce too little, and you lose sales.

In a context of tight cost control and increasingly demanding margins, optimising production planning becomes a strategic priority. This is precisely where fast-response ranges — such as Express formats and thaw and serve products made from frozen dough — play a key role.

Efficient stock management is one of the pillars of profitability in the bakery sector. Numerous industry studies show that overproduction is one of the primary causes of margin erosion, particularly in fresh products with daily turnover. Extending product display beyond its optimal freshness window can also affect the consumer’s perception of quality.

The solution is not to reduce assortment — variety remains a decisive driver of footfall and impulse purchases — but rather to increase operational flexibility.

Fast-Response Ranges: Selling Based on Real Demand

Express products and thaw and serve solutions enable a more dynamic operating model: baking or preparing only what is needed at each moment and replenishing quickly as demand increases.

In the par-baked bread segment, there are highly attractive options such as Urban Brioche — a thaw and serve product ready in just over an hour — as well as Bocadillo Cristal Mediterráneo Express, Bocata Rústico Express or Sliced Multigrain Loaf, all ready within minutes.

The sweet bakery category also offers strong advantages. Products such as Hoops Party, Chocolate Cream Braid or Cream & Custard Braid are recent additions, alongside classic best-sellers like filled doughnuts, sponge cakes, muffins or cookies.

Instead of baking the entire assortment early in the morning and assuming the risk of surplus, production can be planned in time slots: mornings for breakfast, midday for savoury snacks and takeaway solutions, and afternoons for indulgent bakery items and impulse purchases.

This system reduces the volume displayed in cabinets without compromising variety. It is about working with lower initial output and higher responsiveness, always supported by historical sales analysis and real consumption patterns.