Baking provides the focus for the 2014 annual meeting of AACC International (AACCI) taking place

Oct. 5-8 at Providence, RI. A three-part series of special sessions address baking “from different perspectives such as baking market trends, regulatory influences on baking performance and technology for the baker,” noted Peter Koehler, program chair and director of the German Research Center for Food Chemistry, Friesing, Germany.

AACCI’s Milling & Baking Division organized this centerpiece series, inviting speakers from Ardent Mills, Bay State Milling, Cargill, Flowers Foods, General Mills, Innophos, Kansas State University, Kellogg, KU Leuven, Mondelez International, Panera, Pepperidge Farm, PepsiCo, Pizza Hut, US Department of Agriculture and the Wheat Foods Council. These start on the morning of Oct. 6 and continue the following day, Oct. 7, with both morning and afternoon sessions.

To give perspective on the issues affecting the industry, the division’s Oct. 6 lunch will feature Glenn Gaesser, PhD, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe, and director of its Healthy Lifestyles Research Center. He will address “Grains, Body Weight and Health.”

This year’s AACCI annual meeting will be held at the Rhode Island Convention Center, adjacent to the Dunkin’ Donuts sports arena, and offers a busy schedule of symposia, posters, exhibits and supplier innovation sessions. Amy Hope, executive vice-president of AACCI, predicted attendance to be 1,000 to 1,200 persons, usual for this group. Already, more than 60 companies plan to exhibit.

Opening on Oct. 5, the meeting starts with a late-afternoon reception and recognition assembly, followed by an exhibition of two hours. Exhibitors reconvene

Oct. 6 with an early evening beer event and poster viewing. The Oct. 7 exhibits reopen at noon for two more hours of display.

The meeting’s three days offer “the top science from the top scientists,” according to AACCI. Topics run the gamut of carbohydrates, enzymes, fiber, food safety, genetic technologies, gluten measurement, protein, rice quality, shelf life, starch and yeast functionality, among others.

Two pre-meeting short courses convene on Oct. 5. One teaches chemometrics, the application of mathematical or statistical methods to chemical data, and the other conducts a workshop about the C-Cell instrument and how to develop bakery product quality scores. Separate registration and fees apply.

Networking is also high on the meeting’s agenda. Several divisions schedule lunch or dinner gatherings while Kansas State University and North Dakota State University offer separate breakfast events on Oct. 8.

To keep all this straight, Ms. Hope said the association will again offer an app for mobile devices that tracks all events and can be personalized by the attendee.

Regular registration rates run through Aug. 28, with higher rates for late and on-site registration. Hotel deadlines are the same, with Sept. 5 the last day that discounted rates apply. The group’s website, www.aaccnet.org, provides the needed forms. It also gives a link to the Providence Convention and Vistors Bureau’s service, CVB onPeak, which books the meeting’s three hotels: Omni, Courtyard by Marriott Providence Downtown and Providence Biltmore Hotel.