Aladdin Bakers always makes it look easy when it comes to adapting to the market and rolling out new products. Today, the Brooklyn, NY-based company’s portfolio includes more than 100 different stock-keeping units ranging from pocket pita, flat pita, bagels, wraps and paninis to Old World artisan bread.
Additionally, its highly automated baked snacks division produces flatbread crisps, pita chips, matzo snacks, cornbread chips and flavored crunchy breadsticks, which are sold under private label and the Baked in Brooklyn brand. Earlier this year, the company ratcheted up its operation when it installed a new automated sheeting line that can produce up to 500,000 lbs of baked snacks and crackers a week.
“Our diversification over the years has led to our ability to serve our customers however the market changes,” Theresa Watkinson, chief operating officer, told Baking & Snack in its July issue.
Additionally, the bakery bolstered its packaging capabilities with vertical bagging for its array of snacks and horizontal overwrapping for a host of baked foods. The timing couldn’t have been more prescient, especially when the coronavirus (COVID-19) shut down many parts of Aladdin Bakers’ core market.
“That’s really been a godsend considering what is going on with the pandemic,” Ms. Watkinson explained. “It was already in place. If we had to run around when all of this was happening and try to get packaging, I don’t think it would have happened, especially being in Brooklyn.”
Boosting packaging also will become a major part of its retail initiative with its baked snacks and other baked foods as the company ventures out nationally and the economy returns to normal.