The 39th AIBI Congress explored the baking industry at the crossroads between tradition and innovation, aiming to discover opportunities in reinventing bakery for the future, while preserving values that are part of our identity.
In the spectacular setting of the French Riviera, the International Association of Plant Bakers (AIBI) and the Fédération des Entrepreneurs de Boulangerie (FEB) hosted the 39th edition of the biennial Congress at the Muratoglou Hotel in Sofia Antipolis. The forces that transform bakery markets worldwide were analyzed together with an impressive audience of over 200 people, including industry leaders, researchers, solution providers, academia and bakery specialists. An agenda spanning two days with the industry’s most important topics was prepared for the event, across seven themed topics, ranging from evolving consumer expectations, nutrition and health, sustainability ambitions, and digitalization to artificial intelligence, and the changing role of bakery.
A market visit, for a glimpse into the region’s colorful businesses, was organized on the day before the conference program. Introduced in Hamburg at the previous edition of the Congress, the market tour returned in full force, doubled in size to meet popular demand.
In parallel with the event’s conference program, the General Assembly meeting gathered AIBI members for the customary leadership transfer and other association-wide decisions. The French edition bid farewell to AIBI’s President for the 2024-2026 mandate, Jean Manuel Lévêque (France, President – Novepan) and welcomed its new leader, Guido Vanherpe (Belgium, Chief Executive Officer – La Lorraine Bakery Group). Kari Meltovaara (Finland, Managing Director – Leipomo Rosten Oy) and Seb Gooding (Germany, UK, Chief Executive Officer – Valora B2B) were appointed as Vice Presidents, completing the leadership team for the next two years.
Latest advances
One of the notable changes made over the past two years was to simplify communication. In addition to working with the national associations, which are the backbone of AIBI, the international organization representing plant bakers has established direct access to the bakery companies in Europe. AIBI counts 16 national associations among its members, and “On top of that, we thought we needed to have direct access to the companies, which are more and more pan-European and even extend even further. And this is what has been done by creating a sounding board,” Lévêque highlighted in his welcoming address.
And changes did not stop there: sustainability was deemed the topic transcending the organization’s regular agenda, unifying it. With this new approach, the first tangible program is already underway: the Sustainable Wheat Initiative Europe (SIWE). Established at the symposium in Utrecht in June 2025, the initiative drafted its Manifesto and roadmap towards low-carbon wheat and flour. Its first goal is to reduce wheat and wheat flour emissions by 30% by 2030 compared to 2022 levels, in line with the latest climate science. “As a sector, we want to take our responsibility for helping our wheat farmers transition to sustainable agriculture. This is essential to meeting our sustainability goals and to safeguarding the resilience of the European industrial bakery value chain in the face of climate change”, Lévêque explained the importance of the Manifesto. At launch, more than 30 industrial bakery companies, millers, cooperatives, suppliers and value chain actors had already signed the pledge, a shared vision between them.
Cyrille Fillot| photo © AIBI
An intensive learning event
Under the theme ‘Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow’, Europe’s biggest industry association hosted different perspectives on today’s most important topics, through guest speakers who are among the industry’s influential names. As expected, the conference offered its well-established, high-quality agenda, known for its insightful dialogues.
Session: A thriving bakery business: getting acquainted with the latest economic and consumer trends
The latest developments in the bakery business took center stage, including firsthand figures and statistics about the sector, as well as insights into the latest consumer trends, in a bid to identify the drivers of the market changes affecting the bakery business.
The industry is at a crossroads of “powerful, often contradictory forces that demand immediate strategic attention,” long-time Congress moderator Cyrille Fillot (Global Strategist – Consumer Foods, Rabobank) underlined. On one hand, macroeconomic headwinds are taking up speed, while consumers go through a profound shift in their journey to health and wellness, fueled by the rise of GLP-1 medication and the rise of everything high-protein to the podium of food choices. Despite inflation-related pressures, premiumization remains a critical strategic lever in bakery. “Our projection at Rabobank is that we expect the year-over-year food inflation to be somewhere between 5 and 7%,” he anticipates.
The emerging thesis is that premiumization must now be redefined and justified through tangible health benefits, the likes of added protein, or added fiber, rather than relying on indulgence qualities and artisan craftsmanship alone, Fillot noted.
GLP-1 was one of the disruptive factors under intense scrutiny for its potential to bring about an industry-shifting upheaval, with its power to entirely re-map how and what people eat. Puratos offered insights on how exactly the appetite-suppressing drug is changing eating behaviors and what it means for the future of bakery – fittingly over a high-protein breakfast, to showcase solutions that can unlock new opportunities in bakery. “GLP is not a passing trend. It represents a lasting shift that will reshape the industry,” anticipated Dr. Sara de Pelsmaeker, Group Health & Well-Being Director at Puratos. With oral GLP-1 drugs entering the market in 2026, this trend will only accelerate, as the number of uses will spike, particularly among those wary of needles, which has been the only way to administer the drug so far, she noted. While the leading market for GLP-1 intake has been the US, Puratos sees growing markets in Europe, particularly in the UK, Germany and Spain.
The session’s panel brought to the stage industry leaders: Jan Hertz (Lantmännen Unibake), Mieke Remans (Puratos) and Peter Van Den Berg (Pandriks).
A word from Guido Vanherpe
AIBI President, the 2026-2028 mandate“AIBI is about content, first of all: navigating challenges and finding solutions together. But for me, and I hope for you too, it’s even more than that. It’s also about the fun, because we are really in an exciting industry. The Congress has really broadened, and I’m really happy to see more than 200 members in our ecosystem today. That is a fantastic evolution. At the first Congress I attended, 32 years ago, we were around 120 people. At that time, there were even more owners, more CEOs in the room. Our group has developed into a fantastic ecosystem. Going forward, we need to make sure that the owners, the leaders of the bakery industry, attend the AIBI Congress in ever-larger numbers, because they are the passion and they are the fire of our industry.
Actually, the congress from 32 years ago was on the other side of the bay here, in Monaco. My dream would be, in 30 years from now, when it may return once again to Monaco, that some of you will be there and could look at the other side of the bay and say: “ Remember, we were in Antipolis 30 years ago…“ I think that could happen because a lot of the bakery companies are still family businesses. Within our industry, it is important to bring together passion, ownership and leadership in such gatherings because it is very important that, as a bakery industry, we show Europe and the world that we are strong together. So let me end my speech with this adagio: The content and the challenges bring us together. Our passion for the bakery, the breads and the fun do forge good relationships.”
Guido Vanherpe at the AIBI Congress gala dinner event, Saint Tropez, May 2026
photo © AIBI
“We see the topics of health and well-being keep coming back, and all the nutritional demands from consumers that are very important, relevant, and will gain a lot of traction onwards – GLP-1 also being a part of that, together with premiumization,” Mieke Remans observed. “For me, it’s always the data that’s interesting,” added Peter Van Den Berg, regarding the assessments proposed by Gira1; “It’s good to know what the expectation is and to learn about all the new developments in the sector. There is more than a single truth to follow” when gathering insights that help build strategies, he said. Looking at the consumer, he welcomed the growth in the bread category. On the other hand, consumer worries need to be accounted for, Jan Hertz observed: “I don’t think we have seen a significant change directly since the war in Iran broke out. We could see the consumer sentiment coming down – perhaps 13 percentage points, almost as low as COVID,”, he said noting that the market has already been soft for the last 15 to 18 months.
Session: Nutrition and Health: a matter of corporate social responsibility and industry leadership
The growing trend for plant-based food and health-conscious nutrition does not prevent bread consumption from declining – but it does bring an opportunity, if the proposed offerings are interesting enough, with improved nutritional profiles. AIBI members explored how they could contribute to such improvements.
Andrew Pyne (UK, Federation of Bakers) presented the success story of UK bakers gradually reducing salt levels over 30 years, assessing that the country is now a global leader in salt reduction. This was done through incremental reductions across the entire bakery category. “But you have to take the consumer on that journey,” he underlined. “That journey has to be taken across other sectors where the perception of salt, the preference for a salted texture and flavor is changed within the consumer. We have learned in the UK that some targets can work if they are set to a realistic level, where you can just keep taking a little bit off every few years, and you take the whole of the UK profile taste perception with you,” he assessed.
Didier Boudy, FEB President, shared France’s journey with salt reduction, which started with skepticism around 20 years ago, about the feasibility of any significant advances, and turned out to be enormous improvements by adopting a ‘baby steps’ strategy. For the 2022-2025 program, the target for standard white bread in France was to reduce salt content from 1.7% to 1.4%; it was ultimately surpassed, achieving levels between 1.26% and 1.27%, he revealed, noting that reducing salt in whole grain bread is technologically easier than in white bread.
Session: Addressing the drivers of the bakery business future; how will we reinvent bakery?
Looking at potential scenarios for the 2035 industry, Alessandro Angelon (Italy, Sammontana) described success not being measured by the products sold, but by the ability to curate experiences – especially in HoReCa. In-store bakeries in supermarkets, for instance, are already evolving into visual showcases, with aesthetics, color and product variety driving engagement. He emphasized an essential balance that must be reached: while trends ask for less sugar and less salt, indulgence does remain fundamental. He also pointed out an uneven expansion trajectory, comparing the internationalization of US brands with European companies. “If I measure Europe’s quality, know-how, and variety of products, it’s a mystery that we do not exist outside of Europe,” he pondered. Names such as Starbucks or McDonald’s have a global presence, but “Where are the French patisseries, or the Italian cafeterias?,” he asked. “I don’t see them. If you go to an airport in the US, it’s impossible to find an espresso. You get a Starbucks. It’s interesting to see that we, the most important market – Europe, are not present. So we should try to think about what we can do all together to become more relevant, not only with products but also with concepts, with ideas, and how to promote our industry,” Angelon reflected.
Nutrition and health panel: Caroline Sluyter (Whole Grain Initiative), Didier Boudy (Emmi Desserts), Nathalie Siccard (Patroba/Institut Pain & Santé), Andrew Pyne (FOB), Mikkel Andersen, Lantmännen Unibake International) | photo © f2m
For the future, technology – especially AI and robotics – was viewed as transformative in the industry, while sustainability challenges are being addressed. Investment priorities should center on marketing, “Especially in product innovation, on what I would call retro innovation, which means that our future perhaps remains in the past,” as Jean-Manuel Lévêque considers, to refresh traditional products – as long as the cost of new technologies (such as AI) is not passed down to the consumer. A hypothesis and an open conclusion to the Congress that perfectly resonates with the event’s theme: ‘The future is in the past’.
AIBI in figures
16 – National member organizations
110 bn – EUR in turnover
500 – companies
53.6 – Kg bread/person/year