It is tough to be a food producer today and it’s getting worse.
Inside the baked goods industry, a real shift is happening. Not a trend. Not a diet wave. Not another “vegan alternative” story.
It is driven by margin pressure, the rise of private labels, ESG compliance, and the demand for consistent quality at industrial scale. Growth is coming from higher prices while volumes fall. This is not a model that’s not sustainable.
When we zoom into industrial baking, butter is still the default. It’s familiar, trusted, and emotionally tied to tradition. But the business landscape changed. Butter volatility has become the norm. Supply is inconsistent. Scope 3 reporting is getting tighter. Retailers demand cleaner labels. A fat that once felt simple is turning into a risk factor.
At the same time, consumer expectations evolved. Yes, people want indulgence. But they also want products without allergens, unnecessary saturated fats, or environmental baggage.
This puts producers in a balancing act: protecting flavour and tradition, defending brand equity, and delivering cost stability. All while meeting bakery ESG compliance targets and reducing operational risk.
We believe the way forward is not anti-butter. It is smarter butter.
A true pastry fat strategy for modern production.
Why butter matters (and why it doesn’t)
Butter is exceptional.
When the sensory signature of a pastry depends on butter, there is no technical butter replacement that can deliver the same emotional impact.
Laminated doughs with a buttery nose, croissants, traditional specialties, these depend on butter.
But here is the part most producers do not talk about:
Most industrial pastry applications don’t work this way. In pies, tart shells, shortcrust, cookies, creams, fillings, glazes and toppings, butter does not define the taste. The hero is the core ingredient: chocolate, fruits, nuts, spices.
In those categories, butter is no longer a flavour driver, it becomes a functional fat.
And when butter becomes functional, a rational question emerges:
Why use the most expensive, allergenic, volatile fat for a functional job?
This is where a new logic for industrial pastry optimisation begins.
Enter the dual-fat strategy
This is our approach we see adopted by high-volume producers across France, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands.
A strategy rooted in common sense, not ideology as it creates a clear fat optimisation strategy with benefits across the value chain.
Use butter where its flavour defines the product.
Use Be Better where flavour does not depend on butter.
This dual-fat strategy allows producers to:
-keep butter where consumers can taste and appreciate it
-use Be Better plant-butter where a plant-butter for large producers delivers equal functionality at lower risk
-remove allergens in core ranges using an allergen-free pastry fat
-reduce ESG exposure with Scope 3 compliant ingredients
-stabilise costs by reducing butter volatility
-free up bandwidth for NPD and pastry innovation strategy
For development chefs, this increases creative freedom.
For procurement, it reduces risk.
For leadership, it protects margin and supports sustainable brand growth.
Why Be Better works in these applications
Be Better is not margarine. It is not a retail spread. It is a technical butter replacement built specifically for the demands of industrial baking. Its performance is designed to match butter across all major pastry processes. Same lamination tolerance, same plasticity, same performance in doughs, batters, creams, and fillings, same compatibility with industrial equipment. No dairy, no palm, no soy, no allergens
It is chosen not because it is plant-based, but because it is predictable, precise and engineered for pastry fat functionality.
This makes it a dependable tool for industrial baking optimisation, not a lifestyle product.
The cost and compliance equation
The business climate is not becoming easier. Retailers as always push for lower prices while investing in their private labels. Carbon reporting becomes mandatory. Butter remains volatile. Switching the applications where butter is not a flavour driver results in measurable gains:
-raw material cost savings
-stable pricing instead of butter volatility
-allergen reduction (no dairy)
-lower ESG impact (EUDR, Net Zero 2050, Scope 3) as Be Better emits 81% less Co2 vs dairy butter
-reduced complexity in HACCP and labelling
No flavour compromise. No change of recipe. No change of process. Just operational logic.
We believe the pastry industry has reached a turning point.
Not because trends demand it and not because “plant-based” is fashionable. It isn’t! But because the old assumption, butter everywhere, for everything, no longer holds up under the realities producers face today. The businesses that will lead this next decade are not the ones abandoning butter. They are the ones that understand exactly when butter matters and when it doesn’t. And here is the belief guiding everything we do:
If butter is not the hero of the product, it shouldn’t be treated as the backbone of the business.
That is the essence of the dual-fat strategy.
It’s practical. It’s measurable. It’s rooted in taste, process and economics, not ideology. And it’s the reason Be Better is steadily becoming a core tool for modern producers:
a technical fat used with intention, not as a replacement, but as a smarter way to build stable, scalable and future-proof pastry portfolios.
If you want clarity on where this strategy fits your portfolio, request a free Plant-Butter Audit.
