For food service operations and in-store bakeries, the decision to use frozen dough, par-baked or fully-baked frozen involves tradeoffs.

For food service operations and in-store bakeries, the decision to use frozen dough, par-baked or fully-baked frozen involves tradeoffs. Certainly, par-baked and fully-baked frozen provide labor savings. These products simply require popping them in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes or just slacking them out in a display case.

Companies don’t have to hire skilled bakers to proof and bake more versatile frozen dough. Then again, there’s an alternative.

“From a business point of view, when you go from frozen dough to par-baked, your warehouse should have triple the space,” Alberto Alvarez, marketing director, Wenner Bakery, Ronkonkoma, N.Y., told Baking & Snack recently. “That’s because for one case of frozen dough items, you need three cases of par-baked or fully baked items.”

To distribute these products from New York to Orlando, for instance, you need three trailers and then triple the amount of space in the warehouse.

“There is a cost in the long run that many don’t realize,” Mr. Alvarez said.

Moreover, he stated clean label has transitioned from “nice to have” to “must have” for many bakers seeking to bring more healthful alternatives to the market. To accomplish this transition, Wenner Bakery relies on time, perhaps the most valuable ingredient in any baker’s portfolio, said Oriol Tey, Wenner’s president.

“If a good donut requires 45 minutes of fermenting, we do 45 minutes,” Mr. Tey said. “If a good loaf of bread requires three hours of fermenting, it gets three hours. We don’t use a huge amount of yeast or cut corners on the fermentation process. We don’t use chemical leavening ingredients. We use natural ingredients, and we respect the old-fashioned bakery process.”