2025 is shaping up to be a great year for the baking industry. The industry is a growing one with the global baking industry expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 5.2% from 2024 to 2033, reaching $1.17 trillion in sales according to a study by Farrelly Mitchell. In this growing industry, trends are constantly changing and keeping your finger on the pulse of what is popular can help your business grow year over year. In this blog, we will be highlighting the current projected trends of 2025, as well as the baking equipment that can help your bakery efficiently produce these products and ensure your bakery turns a profit in the new year and beyond.

Sourdough

No real surprise here as sourdough skyrocketed to popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As food businesses were shutting down, bakeries were pivoting to simpler products, like sourdough loaves that they could produce and feed the masses. Home bakers with plenty of spare time during the pandemic started making sourdough and even sprouted some new businesses that way. Since then, sourdough has been one of the most popular bakery items and will continue to be in 2025.

Artisanal sourdough can come in many forms like loaves, batons, rolls and more. No matter what type of sourdough product you intend to make, having the right equipment will help tremendously. The most important tools in sourdough production are your dough mixer and your bread oven. You want a mixer that can properly incorporate ingredients and provide optimal dough development. When it comes to the oven, you'll want a deck oven that will provide radiant and even heat with proper insulation and won't be a huge hit to your fuel costs.

Baking Equipment - Deck Oven for sourdough

Keep the Classics

There are classic bakery favorites that are staples in any bakery and some of those products will continue to their popularity in 2025 as well. One of those products is croissants. It's tough to walk into a bakery and not find a croissant or similar laminated dough pastry sitting in the display window. The classic pastries offer consumers a comfort food that they know and love, mixed with an easily attainable form of luxury. As croissants and pain aux chocolat continue to captivate consumers' palates, it may be time for those bakeries not making these flaky pastries to start planning on it.

Croissants are a labor of love, but they don't have to be! Advancements in baking equipment have allowed bakers to simplify their croissant and pastry production process. Machines like Automatic Dough Sheeters are allowing bakers to automate their dough sheeting and laminating processes at the touch of a button. These sheeters even cut the sheeted dough into triangles to take croissant production automation even further.

Authentic Local Goods

Consumers tend to gravitate toward something that is local to them or hits close to home. The baking world is full of ethnic products that are staples to certain regions. According to research performed by Taste Tomorrow, Chinese, English, German, Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions will see steady growth in bakery sales thanks to local authenticity. If you own a bakery in a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood, offering authentic Spanish bakery products will help encourage sales and help you turn a profit in 2025.

Adding the right equipment to your bakery can help you become more versatile and make a variety of products that include authentic local ethnic products. One way to add that level of versatility is with a cookie depositor. Cookie depositors can help a bakery produce thousands of cookies per hour without having to hand pipe each one. The addition of different nozzles, moulds and dies gives your bakery endless cookie possibilities.

The bakery industry is an ever-evolving one with an extremely bright future. Staying ahead of the game requires your finger on the pulse of trends and outfitting your bakery with efficient baking equipment to help simplify your processes and ensure high-quality products are produced. No matter what the next trend brings, leveraging automation and investing in the right equipment will see you up for success in 2025 and beyond.