It’s October, and IBIE is over. It’s also time to think about renewing your BEMA membership. As the Membership Manager, I know that the benefits our members receive when it comes to IBIE are a big draw, but a BEMA membership offers far more than just IBIE discounts.
A BEMA membership provides multiple opportunities each year to engage with others in the industry, discover collaborations, and find new customers. Never been to a BEMA event outside of IBIE? Let us walk you through what they look like, so you can maximize your BEMA membership.
Regional Dinners
BEMA hosts regional dinners that bring together bakers and equipment manufacturers in a more informal setting. A typical evening might look like this:
You arrive at a centrally located restaurant for a cocktail reception followed by a sit-down meal. When you enter, you strike up a conversation with another equipment manufacturer that you met at the last IBIE. Over drinks, you discover that you both know customers who are looking for what the other offers. You exchange cards and promise to get in touch next week.
At dinner, you sit next to a baker from the region who gives you new perspective on what bakers are looking for from your product line. You can take that information back to your company and use it to better pitch your products to bakers.
By the end of the night, you’ve had conversations with other manufacturers and bakers about everything from the state of the baking industry to who’s going to win the World Series. You had a great dinner, made some new contacts and renewed some existing relationships.
NEXUS
NEXUS is an event that focuses on education and collaboration. A highlight of NEXUS is the opportunity to participate in Spark sessions where you can meet industry customers and partners one-on-one chosen through a carefully moderated selection process, giving you an introduction to a potential customer. Come with me on a journey through a day at NEXUS:
Start your day early with a meeting you set up weeks in advance in your Spark suite, made available to those who want a private meeting place.
Head over to breakfast where you have the opportunity to network with several people you already know and strike up a casual conversation with a few you hadn’t met before.
Enjoy a keynote address from a motivational speaker with insights on leadership and change.
Head out to another Spark session where you sit down with a commercial baker you’ve been trying to connect with for months. You spend time discussing potential business opportunities and leave with more insight into how to make a collaboration happen between your two companies.
Grab some lunch and decide on which afternoon sessions you’ll attend. It might be another Spark session or you can check out the multiple education workshops. You decide on the new product development and innovation session and engage with other people who are also interested in new innovations in baking. You exchange cards with several people who have unique ideas worth following up on.
Finish up the day with a fun evening event. It’s a place where you have a few more casual conversations and engage in making memories with some of the people you’ve met. A few of those casual conversations will need priority follow-up with when you get home!
Mike Porter, New Horizons Baking Company, reflected on the event saying “The most valuable aspect of NEXUS for myself and New Horizons Baking Company were the Spark sessions. The Spark sessions allowed us to meet in one location with multiple vendors to review their new technology and their competitive advantages, enabling us to make the best decision to build our future with New Horizons and to fulfill our customers’ demands.”
Convention
Convention is another big reason people renew their BEMA membership year after year. This event always provides a fun, family atmosphere. It’s a time when you can bring your family to relax and enjoy all the events BEMA plans while interacting with other industry members. In addition to industry-leading equipment and ingredient suppliers, there are stakeholders from approximately 40 (FORTY!) bakeries. It’s a favorite for all who attend, and most people who attend once return year after year. Convention is one of the reasons BEMA often feels like family.
Clay Miller, Burford Corp., says, “BEMA’s Convention is the perfect combination of time-honored traditions and relationships with future-facing conversations that drive innovation and intelligent solutions. You won’t find a better place in the baking industry to connect and learn with the best of the best food producers and suppliers.”
Committees
Serving on a committee is a benefit of BEMA membership? It definitely is. Getting involved in one of BEMA’s three committees is a great way to broaden your reach. People from manufacturers of all types serve on our committees, and we welcome anyone who wants to be a part.
Committee membership provides a different perspective of the baking industry and allows you to interact with others that may serve a different sector of the industry than your company does. These interactions can lead to thinking differently about your own products and open up new avenues you hadn’t previously investigated.
Renew Today
BEMA is all about bringing the baking industry together in as many ways as we can. Even our hashtag says it, #BEMAConnectsYou. A BEMA membership provides so much more than just early access to IBIE. You can connect with the industry and gain insights from engaging more frequently than every three years. Whether it’s regional dinners, Convention, NEXUS, or serving on a committee, BEMA provides connection opportunities and insights that help your business and your people thrive. Renew your membership by following the steps below.
- Log in to your BEMA account by heading to BEMA.org and selecting the “Login” link.
- On your dashboard, click the link to Renew Your Membership.
- Confirm your address information, then pay via ACH, check or credit card.
