Every bakery is different. Equipment, products, and processes vary. When it comes to food safety and hygienic design, everyone across the baking industry is working toward the same goal: delivering safe, high-quality products while taking care of the people who love making them.
That shared purpose was at the heart of a thoughtful panel discussion featuring Jeff Shura, Chad Larson, Nick Magistrelli and Matt Zielsdorf. Rather than searching for a one-size-fits-all solution, the conversation focused on something even more valuable: how stronger collaboration between bakers, OEMs, and suppliers can simplify challenges, improve communication and raise the standard for everyone. The industry’s greatest opportunity lies in working together to make best existing practices more accessible, practical, and effective.
A Conversation
Whether you’re a global manufacturer or a family-owned bakery, everyone takes on the responsibility of producing and delivering safe food. The panelists acknowledged that organizations operate at different scales. Large companies often have dedicated engineering and food safety teams that develop detailed equipment specifications. Smaller bakeries may rely much more heavily on their OEM partners for expertise and guidance. Instead of viewing those differences as obstacles, the panel encouraged the industry to build stronger partnerships that help every organization make informed decisions.
Treating equipment suppliers as strategic partners early in the purchasing process and sharing your operational goals, sanitation expectations and maintenance challenges before equipment is designed or ordered can help minimize some of those challenges we all face. Better conversations upfront often prevent bigger challenges down the road.
Simplify the Process
OEMs often balance multiple regional regulations, customer specifications, and sanitation requirements while trying to build equipment that remains practical and cost-effective. Bakers, meanwhile, may navigate customer audits, third-party certifications, internal standards, and changing workforce experience levels.
The result can be an overwhelming collection of specifications that sometimes overlap, sometimes conflict, and often require additional engineering time. Rather than creating another new standard, the panel suggested focusing on establishing a common baseline that everyone can understand and build from. A shared foundation creates consistency for the industry and allows companies to customize where it truly adds value. Review your own specifications and ask whether every requirement truly improves food safety or whether some expectations could be simplified without sacrificing quality or performance.
Design for Cleanability
The success of hygienic design heavily depends on how efficiently equipment can be cleaned, maintained and operated on a daily basis. And more importantly, building beautiful machines that allow sanitation teams to clean thoroughly and consistently. Several panelists emphasized designing with the end user in mind. Equipment should be intuitive, accessible and practical for the people responsible for maintaining it – especially as many facilities experience higher employee turnover and shorter training timelines.
As Matt Zielsdorf shared, every equipment designer should spend time cleaning the machines they create. First-hand experience often reveals opportunities that engineering drawings cannot. As bakers connect with their OEMs, include sanitation and maintenance teams in equipment evaluations. Their day-to-day experience can identify improvements that reduce cleaning time, improve accessibility and strengthen food safety.
Keep Learning
Food safety standards evolve, customer expectations change, new technologies emerge, and none of these conversations should end once equipment is installed. That is why taking the opportunity to strengthen collaboration through organizations like BEMA, the Baking Industry Forum (BIF), ASB and other industry groups that bring together bakers, OEMs and suppliers can minimize some of the common challenges each of us faced on both sides of the industry. Diverse perspectives often uncover practical solutions that benefit everyone.
Stay Focused
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the discussion was the importance of staying focused on the industry’s shared mission: protecting consumers and protecting employees. When every conversation begins with those goals, decisions become clearer, standards become more meaningful, and partnerships become stronger.
Jeff Shura captured that spirit when he said, “What I love about our industry is that we truly partner together as suppliers, OEMs, and bakers to improve our industry.”
That collaborative mindset was a consistent theme throughout the discussion. Each stakeholder brings unique expertise, and meaningful progress happens when those perspectives come together around a common purpose. By strengthening partnerships, simplifying where possible, and remaining committed to continuous improvement, the baking industry can develop solutions that no single organization could achieve on its own.
The conversation doesn’t end with this panel. It continues every time teams ask better questions, share what they’ve learned, and work together to create safer bakeries for the future.
