ASB to celebrate 100 years of service at BakingTech 2024

The American Society of Baking (ASB) is celebrating 100 years of service at BakingTech 2024, which means it will not only be providing education and networking to help the industry move forward, it will also be honoring history by reflecting on the past 10 decades of the baking industry.

“This is a culmination of all the work we’ve done over the last year, looking back at our 100 years and ahead at how we can grow and strengthen the organization in the future,” said Eric Lewis, chairman of the ASB board of directors and vice president of supply chain quality, Flowers Foods, Thomasville, Ga. “We’ve done a lot of events, we’ve had a lot of communication this year, but this is the culmination of that first year, the first of the next 100 years or more.”

The opening reception for the event, which will be Feb. 27-29 in Chicago, will be a centennial celebration that will be kicked up a notch, said Kristen Spriggs, ASB’s executive director, who will be marking her one-year anniversary with the organization at BakingTech.

“This year we’re making it more of a signature event,” she said. “It’s going to be a celebration of the decades and our history. It’s going to have music from the various decades; we’ve got live entertainment. And we’re even letting people know if they want to dress up or pick attire from your favorite decade, by all means come and enjoy whether groovy gear is your style or if you’re more of a Dapper Dan.”

And no big party in the baking industry would be complete without cake.

“That was a big deal for the planning committee,” Spriggs said. “We’re the baking industry, so if we’re celebrating, we’d better have cake.”

In addition to the Rising Star Awards and the 2024 Baking Hall of Fame induction ceremony, BakingTech will salute past Hall of Fame honorees with videos, artifacts and more.

“When you come into the room where we all gather, we want it to feel like it’s a main stage,” Spriggs said. “So we’re going to use that opportunity to really help tell the story of ASB and how so much has happened at ASB. The membership and BakingTech really is synonymous with innovation and an innovative industry, innovative leaders, how they learned from one another.”

The Bread Talks stage, which debuted at BakingTech 2023, is now the Bake Talks stage and will be expanded and featured prominently at the MarketPlace, where more than 200 equipment and ingredient suppliers will be on hand.

“I moderated those sessions last year, and they were really well-received,” Spriggs said.

In addition to professional workshops and luncheons, more than 30 innovative technical presentations will be featured at the event. And Spriggs said that ASB partners will play a more prominent role this year, including research presented by the Grain Foods Foundation and a talk about advocacy by Eric Dell, president and chief executive officer of the American Bakers Association.

Lewis said he’s proud of all the hard work that’s gone into planning BakingTech and looks forward to meeting with industry colleagues, an important part of the event.

“There’s a lot of pride in this industry and what we do,” he said. “It’s a time to get together. We get to learn a lot, we get to see new things, we get to collaborate. This to me is a great event because of that.”

To learn more about BakingTech including registration information, the speakers, a schedule of events and more, go to www.asbe.org/bakingtech2024/.