7 Feb 2025
The reputation and demand for sourdough bread have reached unprecedented heights in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, home baking became a global phenomenon as millions turned to making sourdough at home, an activity that was equal parts therapeutic and practical. Google searches for "sourdough" increased fivefold during the lockdowns, highlighting this surge in interest. Today, sourdough remains to be the largest and fastest-growing consumer trend and shows no signs of slowing down.
What is sourdough?
The world of bread offers limitless possibilities, enriched by diverse textures, recipes, and traditions. At its core, bread starts with three simple ingredients: flour, water, and fermentation—commonly known as sourdough. Despite its simplicity, mastering quality sourdough is a challenge. For centuries, sourdough has been the cornerstone of breadmaking, harnessing thousands of wild yeasts and lactic bacteria to create unique flavors and characteristics.
With Puratos's Sapore and O-tentic ready to use sourdough products, bakers are enabled to grow their offer while saving time, creating signature breads with consistent quality.
Is the sourdough market on the rise?
Beyond its home-baking boom, sourdough has solidified its status as a bakery staple. According to market data, the global sourdough market was valued at $2.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1% from 2024 to 2032.
Consumers are increasingly drawn to sourdough for its health benefits, premium taste, and artisanal appeal. The perception of sourdough bread as healthy has risen, with 62% of consumers now viewing it as healthier, a 10% increase since 2021.
Sourdough's versatility is reflected in the growing consumer interest in various baked goods, with significant increases in searches for sandwich bread (+653%), bagels (+217%), and cookies (+149%), among others, according to Taste Tomorrow research.
It’s great news for bakers. Artisan bread varieties like sourdough, ciabatta, and multigrain have proven to be highly profitable items.
However, rising demand raises important questions for industrial bakers: how can sourdough maintain its traditional appeal while scaling production to meet consumer needs?
What are the challenges in industrial baking of sourdough?
Scaling bread production involves tackling several challenges, such as ensuring food safety during extended fermentation, managing the lively and sticky dough, and maintaining consistent quality.
Achieving the desired artisan texture—a crusty exterior with an open, elastic crumb—depends on precise control of time and temperature during fermentation, meticulous dough handling, and adjustments to specialized equipment.
What role does packaging play in sourdough’s appeal?
According to recent data, 42% of consumers buy bread from the supermarket at least once a week, and packaging plays a critical role in how these products are perceived. As sustainability concerns rise, innovative solutions like compostable packaging and biodegradable materials are emerging to meet the growing demand for eco-friendly options.
Effective ways to stand out
Highlight key aspects of your bread’s process, such as “stone-baked” or “12-hour fermentation,” and emphasize attributes like “no additives” or “natural sourdough” to resonate with consumers.
Consider tailoring your message to the local culture. For instance, in Italy, avoid references to “sourness,” while in the UK, focus on “naturalness.” In regions with greater ingredient literacy, terms like “long fermentation” or “bacteria” can be effective.
For country-specific advice, contact your local Puratos representative to discover the best approach for your market.
Tips on premium positioning of your product
Clean(er)-label products—that do not contain ingredients that are perceived as artificial and that are not easily understood by regular consumers—are increasingly sought after. Sourdough is perfectly suited to meet this demand due to its natural fermentation process, which requires no artificial additives to develop its distinct flavor and texture.
Additionally, sourdough fermentation is gaining popularity in gluten-free (GF) baking. It has been shown to improve the sensory characteristics of gluten-free breads—such as texture, aroma, and nutritional value—making it a promising solution for GF consumers who are looking for more natural alternatives.
Establish your own version of premium bread
To truly capitalize on sourdough’s potential, define your vision of "premium" through four essential elements:
- Artisan appearance: create breads with a rustic, handmade look.
- Distinctive flavor and texture: Use techniques like long fermentation to enhance depth and mouthfeel.
- Compelling storytelling: Highlight processes such as “stone-baked”.
- Health-focused attributes: Emphasize clean-label claims and nutritional benefits.
Even bakeries with high-speed production lines can achieve premium results. Small adjustments, such as using decoration grains, dusting flour, or adding incisions, can lend everyday breads an artisan twist.
For those looking to innovate further, sourdough's premium qualities can elevate classics like baguettes and burger buns, helping bakeries stand out in a competitive market.
This integrated approach enables bakeries to align with consumer expectations, seize opportunities in the clean-label trend, and establish themselves as leaders in premium sourdough baking.
Can sourdough remain artisan and scalable?
The world of bread is virtually unlimited, particularly now that it has embraced a wealth of textures, recipes and traditions. Its roots are quite simple, as it all starts with flour, water and fermentation, in short … with sourdough. Although, the simplicity is deceiving, sourdough bread has been bread’s seed of life for centuries. Thousands of different wild yeasts and lactic bacteria thrive in it, with each bringing their own characteristics, creating their own flavour. Puratos’ own Sapore and O-tentic ranges reflect the variety that sourdough has to offer, thereby letting you grow your business with true signature breads. Sapore is Puratos’ offer of different sourdoughs that can be used with every type of dough — the range varies from mild creamy sourdoughs to fruity sourdoughs that bring a new tanginess to your bread. Easy to use and based on natural ingredients, O-tentic is at the start of all your breads. It’s also highly reminiscent of the good old days: meaning tasty, fresh and extremely high quality.
Join the tradition, create your future
In conclusion, it is possible to control every facet of the process when preparing rustic style breads using the industrial baking process. Our range of sourdoughs delivers the tradition of sourdough while letting you create breads with your own flavour profile, appearance and story. And an extensive range of cleaner label Bakery Improvers makes it much easier to meet consumers’ expectations on texture, tolerance and freshness. And if you are keen on convenient dosing at the mixing bowl, we can offer all key ingredients in a bakery mix.
Puratos, who firmly believes that the future of bread lies in its past, is always willing to share its expertise and know-how in this domain, both when it comes to choosing ingredients, as well as starting up production. Don’t hesitate to contact your account manager if you’d like to talk with one of our experts.
