How Südzucker Can Support You – Successful Customer Workshop on Fondants

So far, you might know us as a “pure” ingredient supplier, but in addition to our broad product portfolio, we also support our customers in the areas of development, application and market expertise.

Therefore we are also in constant exchange with external experts and partners from the various sectors in order to be close to the market and the consumer and to be able to work on new ideas for our customers.

For our sugar specialities in particular, such as fondants, we are in close contact with confectioners in order to keep abreast of market developments right from the start. Our main development center for sugar and sugar speciality solutions in Offstein, Germany, as well as our specialised R&D center for fondant solutions in Oostkamp, Belgium, play an important role in this.

A good and much appreciated way to show and explain our broad fondant portfolio and the services we offer in terms of technical support are interactive customer workshops. Early October we hosted our latest customer event: a full-day workshop, focusing on our fondant products and their use in bakery and chocolate confectionery such as pralines.

 
The day was divided into two parts: kicked off by our partner Euromonitor providing insights into trends and developments of the bakery segment, and rounded up by an interactive work session, led by World Confectionery Champion Andrea Schirmaier-Huber.

In the practical session, the participants prepared different fondant products and applied them in several applications – from classic fondants and fudge icings to sugar-reduced fondants used on muffins, donuts and in chocolate pralines. They were able to experience directly that the properties and handling of our sugar-reduced fondants themselves and in the finished product are very similar to those of the conventional alternative. Be it in terms of application, flavour, texture or general sensory appeal.

Besides the self-made products, other fondant specialities such as our Close Wrap Icing could be tasted in pre-prepared samples as well.

Additionally, there was also time to talk about market developments and other business-influencing factors in general. Face to face workshops are always a great way for us to understand better the challenges of our customers and discuss potential solutions forward to tackle consumer needs and other strategic goals together.

The workshop was highly appreciated by all participants and helped growing closer together between the related departments such as R&D, product management and marketing.

Apart from such workshops, we are also happy to welcome customers to our R&D facilities or visit them at their site to discuss potential use cases.

Through our R&D centers, we offer a wide range of product development services. This includes making small adjustments, like adjusting the colour of caramel sugar or the glucose content in fondant, as well as more significant changes, such as clean label free ingredients. We also offer joint tailored developments.

Our sweetening solutions are mainly for the beverage and food industry, but we also carry out pharmaceutical-grade developments for the pharma industry, including all the necessary analytical tools.

In addition to the two R&D centers, we have also two application centers, located in Offstein, Germany and Tienen, Belgium. In these two application centers, we are offering support for the following applications:

 
For these areas of application, we can carry out sample / pilot scale trials under hygienic food conditions, among other things.