Bakery - "Healthy" stores

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storewanderer
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Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by storewanderer »

I purchased a cake slice from a store that is attempting to be healthy. The cake slice said white cake slice strawberry filling. It was stored on a table at room temperature. The white frosting sure seemed like non dairy whipped topping to me (not sure how that isn't fake) but what really floored me was the strawberry filling - it was strawberry preserves (from the jelly aisle)!!! I've never seen a cake made with that before. Is this typical for cakes at "natural" focused stores? This was far from good, in fact, about 80% of it went into the trash.

I have had strawberry cakes from Whole Foods and they always had something inside with some chunks of actual strawberry.

What about Sprouts? Or other natural/Organic chains?

Posted here to make this a generic topic vs. calling out the specific store in question.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by HCal »

I guess it would depend on the store, but if it's an independent that is preparing these things on site, then they probably just use whatever they have available from the aisles because it's easier. There is no formal definition of "natural" or "healthy" so it can really mean whatever the store wants it to mean.
storewanderer
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by storewanderer »

This is not an independent.

Terrible.

Glad I did the test run on the slice so I don't buy a full size or worse buy a cake from this place and bring it to an event.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

Sprouts has a mediocre bakery. I see some really small cake slices in very limited flavors. They are so small that it is rip off. No other supermarket has cake slices that small. The other Bakery items are usually expiring that day and rock hard stale. They have jalapeño bread so spicy that it will make your throat bleed. Seriously, it will burn you. No wonder it is expiring that day. It does not sell well. The muffins are unsweetened and tasteless. The cookies are also bland and rock hard stale.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by storewanderer »

Sprouts Crumb Cake slices are very good if they still have those. Sprouts regular cake slices are okay but a poor value- very small size, under 400 calories I think which is low for a cake slice. At 1.49 when they first came out, they were okay; at the current price they are not worth it.

Sprouts did not have in-store bakery until they took over Henry's (who had a fairly extensive bakery) and Sunflower (who had a limited bakery). So in-store bakery is a relatively new department for Sprouts. Henry's seemed to do bakery a lot better than Sprouts.

The jalapeno issue may be because they are cutting the jalapenos fresh in the store and not removing enough of the seeds during that process.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by pseudo3d »

I'm going to guess this store is owned by a medium-sized chain with about 130 stores in the chain, plus or minus 5... :roll:

I'm surprised they don't have any bakery supply chain. At H-E-B, they had a separate supply for the bakery that carried a few items that they didn't have in stores, in particular, a type of sugar with larger crystals and some rainbow sprinkles that looked like aquarium gravel. (Not to mention other ingredients, like the dry powder used to make custard fillings).
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: May 15th, 2021, 2:48 pm I'm going to guess this store is owned by a medium-sized chain with about 130 stores in the chain, plus or minus 5... :roll:

I'm surprised they don't have any bakery supply chain. At H-E-B, they had a separate supply for the bakery that carried a few items that they didn't have in stores, in particular, a type of sugar with larger crystals and some rainbow sprinkles that looked like aquarium gravel. (Not to mention other ingredients, like the dry powder used to make custard fillings).
There is a bakery supply chain. Even a bakery plant that makes some items and freezes them and ships them to the other +/- 127 stores. But it does not seem to be compliant with the new store's "banned ingredients" for certain items, evidently many cake and cake related materials.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: May 15th, 2021, 2:49 pm
pseudo3d wrote: May 15th, 2021, 2:48 pm I'm going to guess this store is owned by a medium-sized chain with about 130 stores in the chain, plus or minus 5... :roll:

I'm surprised they don't have any bakery supply chain. At H-E-B, they had a separate supply for the bakery that carried a few items that they didn't have in stores, in particular, a type of sugar with larger crystals and some rainbow sprinkles that looked like aquarium gravel. (Not to mention other ingredients, like the dry powder used to make custard fillings).
There is a bakery supply chain. Even a bakery plant that makes some items and freezes them and ships them to the other +/- 127 stores. But it does not seem to be compliant with the new store's "banned ingredients" for certain items, evidently many cake and cake related materials.
If it's the chain I think it is, as we have noted in other threads, that chain is pretty confused right now as to what it wants to be. The only bakeries I am aware of that do anything in-house are Safeway are Costco, and even then, not sure how much of it is thaw-and-serve.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

Safeway in my area is notorious for moldy baked goods. It was obvious that they were selling expired products to the point that they were totally infested with mold. There were pumpkin pies that were dried up and cracking. It was so bad that they did some "Bakery Blowout" sales where there were piles of baked goods that just sat there.

Later on, the bakery at that store closed for a "remodel." But it was obvious that they were cleaning out a major mold infestation as they put up plastic curtains to seal in the air from the bakery.

Only some of the Safeway stores have in-store bakeries. The smaller stores get their baked goods delivered from larger Safeway stores. The largest stores do baking for several stores in the area. Safeway used to require that the wood fired oven be lit 24 hours a day per the corporate office. They wanted it all for show even though nothing was baking at the time. After Albertsons took over, they finally turned off the wood fired ovens to save costs.

There is one Safeway I visited yesterday that had open air cake displays. They had a curved sneeze guard, but there was no lid over the cakes. People could just sneeze or cough on the cakes. You can imagine how many flies must have landed on those cakes as they sat overnight.
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Re: Bakery - "Healthy" stores

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: May 19th, 2021, 8:29 pm
If it's the chain I think it is, as we have noted in other threads, that chain is pretty confused right now as to what it wants to be. The only bakeries I am aware of that do anything in-house are Safeway are Costco, and even then, not sure how much of it is thaw-and-serve.
Smiths works with a lot of frozen dough but has done a few things from scratch now and then over the years. Most work with frozen dough.

Also Whole Foods does a decent amount of from scratch, but less than they did when the Reno Store opened.

Safeway's in-house bakery program has MAJOR consistency issues on the few items they make from scratch (donuts, french bread, muffins/ring cakes) and these items are, frankly, worse quality at Safeway than they are at competitors that do a frozen dough then bake in store process (the old Albertsons, Save Mart, and Raleys standard format notably). Sometimes you get a Safeway that makes good stuff consistently (like Truckee), sometimes you get one that makes good stuff some days (like Reno) and other times you get one that just can't make good stuff any day (like Zephyr Cove).
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