When autumn rolls around, customers can’t wait to purchase pumpkin-flavored items and other spiced products. When it’s the holiday season, they look forward to peppermint-inspired recipes. These two seasons have iconic flavor profiles that customers look forward to as soon as Halloween or the holidays are over. While the seasons themselves wane, preparation for seasonal demand never does.
Anticipating seasonal demand can be tricky if frozen food labels don’t employ the right automated equipment to meet high quotas. Brands need to be ready to upscale production months before the next season to meet both regular item quotas and those of seasonal frozen food products. Meeting these quotas is exceptionally important because of how eager customers are to purchase their long-awaited seasonal items. The challenge is successfully meeting demand.
Here, we’ll offer some common seasonal frozen food products that customers enjoy every year. However, we’ll focus on using automated food equipment to anticipate food manufacturing industry trends and meet seasonal item quotas. Equipment such as bakery and pizza making equipment can simplify operations while increasing productivity, which is especially helpful when anticipating seasonal demand.
Seasonal Frozen Food Products
Even though we’re always sad to see the end of the summer, it means that pumpkin- and other fall-inspired ingredients and meals will hit the grocery store shelves. Pumpkin spice and similar products are exceedingly popular, especially considering that the popularity of pumpkin-spice-flavored items grew 47% from 2017-2022. Customers enjoy the nostalgia and comfort of these flavors, contributing to the high demand for such products.
Winter holiday flavors are also popular, such as clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. These flavors are associated with joy and festivity at the end of the year, and another group of flavor profiles that people hold dear and look forward to. Seasonal frozen food products that incorporate these flavors can increase the demand for your product line around the holiday season.
Another aspect of anticipating seasonal demand is also knowing when common ingredients are in season. While IQF ingredients have virtually eliminated waiting for the in-season of fruits and vegetables, if your company works with a local farm, knowing produce seasons can help plan seasonal products. For example, if your frozen pizza brand sources local broccoli, cauliflower, or parsley, you can expect to include these ingredients in your products around January to March. If you count on local, farm-fresh strawberries for your bakery items, they’ll be ready around May.
Anticipating seasonal demand includes both holiday items and specific ingredient seasons. Planning accordingly can help your team make the most of the demand. Anticipating food manufacturing trends is exceptionally easier when you have automated food equipment to help meet quotas and demand.
Automation and Anticipating Food Manufacturing Industry Trends
Major food manufacturing industry trends such as seasonal demands require consistent and adaptable equipment to keep up. This equipment should also be versatile. Each of these key characteristics can help frozen food manufacturers get ready to follow food manufacturing industry trends and meet demand.
Consistency
Reliable automated food equipment should produce consistent and quality meals. This improves the customer experience and inspires them to continue to choose your product over the competitor’s.
Adaptability
Adaptable automated equipment allows brands to ramp up or down production speeds when needed. This includes belt speed and topping application speed. Adjusting production speeds as needed helps brands meet increased demand and conserves ingredients and resources when demand returns to normal. This is also helpful when anticipating seasonal demand– your brand can easily increase production of seasonal items when following food manufacturing trends.
Versatility
Versatility is another important aspect of the right automated food equipment. If your machinery can’t switch out similar ingredients, your team may be spending extra resources on procuring and running additional machines. Versatile machinery grants brands the ability to seamlessly switch between ingredient usage, which is helpful when transitioning between seasonal ingredients and regular ones.
Consistency, adaptability, and versatility are all necessary features of automated food equipment when successfully meeting food manufacturing industry trends. But what equipment options are available? Next, we’ll explore the process of finding what works for you– from finding pizza making equipment to finding bakery equipment manufacturers.
Automated Success: From Pizza Making Equipment to Bakery Equipment Manufacturers
Anticipating seasonal demand includes finding the right equipment and manufacturer in time to implement your new tech. Whether you’re upgrading or finding new equipment as a new business, your search is key to choosing machinery that will complement your existing line and improve operations. Finding pizza making equipment and trustworthy bakery equipment manufacturers should be simple. That’s why at Quantum, we prioritize adaptable and versatile equipment that pizza, bakery, and prepared meal brands can rely on.
Online reviews and talking with the manufacturer are straightforward ways of learning if certain equipment or a manufacturer can work with your production processes. Our team at Quantum Technical Services is ready to answer any questions you may have about our equipment and scaling up for seasonal products. We offer a range of automated equipment that brings consistency, adaptability, and versatility to any food production line.
Quantum Automated Food Equipment
Your team can find the following equipment types at Quantum:
- Sauce applicators
- Cheese/Topping Applicators
- Meat/Pepperoni Slicers
- Dry/Granular Ingredient Applicators
- Cardboard Circle Placers
- Conveyor Systems
These machines can assemble frozen pizza, bakery, and prepared meal production, and can apply a range of different ingredients. For example, our Cheese applicators can also apply IQF ingredients, dry ingredients, and vegetables. This versatility grants brands the ability to alternate between regular and seasonal ingredients, preparing your team for seasonal demand. Our equipment can also increase production rates while ensuring consistency and quality in every item. This holiday’s seasonal success starts with today’s planning– why wait to transform your frozen meal production line?
Prepare for Seasonal Demand With Quantum
At Quantum, we design industry-leading equipment for frozen pizza, bakery, and prepared meal production. Our automated equipment improves operations while increasing productivity, and can help your team scale up for high-volume times of the year. Talk to our team today to learn how your brand can prepare for seasonal demand with Quantum equipment.