Why Your Bakery Shouldn’t Have to Chase the Weather

By Reece Brumby, Managing Director, KOMA UK

Whenever temperatures begin to rise, the same conversations start appearing across the bakery industry.

Should recipes be adjusted?

Do proofing times need to change?

Should production begin earlier, before the building gets too warm?

How do you keep the team comfortable while protecting product quality and consistency?

These are all sensible questions. Good bakers understand their products and know how to respond when conditions change.

But there is another question worth asking.

Why should your entire production process have to keep chasing the weather?

Because sometimes the answer is not another adjustment to the recipe, the timetable or the way the team works.

Sometimes, the answer is to create greater control over the environment around the product.

The temperature outside can quickly become a production issue

You don’t need me to tell you that the conditions inside a bakery are not separate from the production process.

Ambient temperature, humidity and airflow can all influence the way ingredients, dough and finished products behave.

So when the weather becomes warmer, what previously felt predictable can begin to shift.

Dough may become more difficult to handle. Proofing timings can move. Cooling may take longer. Products can arrive at the packaging stage carrying more moisture than expected. Production teams can find themselves working in uncomfortable conditions while trying to maintain the same standards and output.

Nothing necessarily stops working.

But small inconsistencies start appearing across the day.

The only real response is to compensate manually. Recipes are adjusted, timings are changed and experienced members of the team use their knowledge and intuition to keep everything on track.

That skill will always be important.

But if the environment is moving around more than the recipe, is your bakery asking its people and processes to compensate for something that could potentially be controlled?

Adapting the recipe can treat the symptom rather than the cause

There will always be occasions when a baker decides to adjust a recipe or production schedule. Raw materials vary, products behave differently and no system removes the need for experience.

The problem comes when those adjustments become a seasonal routine.

If teams regularly need to change the process because the room is too warm, too humid or behaving differently from one day to the next, the bakery is carrying avoidable variability.

That makes consistency more dependent on individual judgement.

It can also make production planning harder. A process that works perfectly during one shift may behave differently during another. Newer employees may struggle to make the same adjustments as experienced bakers. Small variations can eventually show up as rework, waste, reduced throughput or inconsistent finished products.

The goal should not be to remove the craft from baking.

It should be to give skilled people a more stable environment in which to apply it.

That reflects the wider approach KOMA UK takes to production technology: reliable temperature control, humidity management and airflow should simplify the process rather than introduce unnecessary complexity.

Production area cooling is not simply air conditioning

When we talk about controlling the climate around bakery production, we are not suggesting fitting conventional comfort air conditioning and pointing powerful fans across exposed dough.

A bakery production environment has very specific requirements.

The system needs to maintain a stable temperature without creating excessive airflow across the product. We understand that air moving too quickly can contribute to dehydration and affect exposed dough surfaces.

KOMA production-area cooling systems can use low-velocity air socks or double-blowing evaporators to distribute conditioned air more carefully. This helps maintain controlled room temperatures while protecting both the product and the comfort of the people working around it.

Depending on the application, production-room temperatures can typically be maintained between approximately +12°C and +18°C.

The purpose is not to make the room unnecessarily cold.

It is to create stable, appropriate conditions that support the bakery’s process rather than constantly working against it.

Packaging areas need control over humidity as well as temperature

And of course, temperature is only part of the picture.

In packaging areas, humidity can be just as important.

A product leaving a shock freezer or another cold production stage can attract condensation when it enters a warmer, more humid environment. If that moisture remains on the product or packaging, it can create quality and presentation problems.

KOMA packaging-area solutions combine cooling with active dehumidification.

The aim is to help products reach the packaging stage dry, reducing the risk of condensation being sealed into the pack with them.

Depending on the product and process, packaging-room conditions can be controlled across a broad temperature range, typically from approximately +2°C to +18°C.

Again, the purpose is not cooling for its own sake.

It is about managing the transition between production stages so that the conditions surrounding the product remain predictable.

Airlocks and transfer areas are part of the process too

The areas between cooling, freezing and production zones are easy to overlook.

But an uncontrolled transfer space can allow warm, humid air to move into refrigerated areas each time a door opens. That can increase condensation, add pressure to the refrigeration system and make it harder to maintain stable conditions.

An actively cooled and dehumidified airlock helps products enter the freezer as dry as possible.

It can also reduce cold loss when doors are opened and lower the amount of unnecessary work being placed on the cooling or freezing system.

For larger combination systems, this means the airlock is not simply a corridor between two rooms.

It becomes an important part of the overall climate-control strategy. 

Better control can help both products and people

The commercial argument for climate control starts with product quality and consistency.

But it does not end there.

A more stable production environment can also give teams greater confidence in timings, reduce the need for constant manual adjustments and help create more comfortable working conditions during warmer periods.

It can support:

• More predictable product behaviour

• Greater consistency between shifts and seasons

• Reduced condensation around packaging and transfer stages

• Lower cold loss between controlled areas

• Better conditions for production employees

• More efficient operation of cooling and freezing equipment

Not every bakery will need every type of system.

The important point is to look at the full production journey and identify where changing environmental conditions are creating pressure.

That is usually more useful than looking at each room or piece of equipment in isolation. It’s the same operational argument I’ve made in previous articles in this blog: small inconsistencies across cooling, proofing and storage can become costly when they accumulate throughout production. 

What should bakeries review during warm weather?

Our recent and ongoing period of warmer weather can be a useful opportunity to look at how the production environment is really performing.

Useful questions to ask yourself include:

• Are recipes or timings being changed primarily because the room conditions have changed?

• Do products behave differently depending on the time of day or outside temperature?

• Are production employees working in uncomfortable conditions?

• Is condensation becoming more noticeable around packaging or transfer areas?

• Are cooling and freezing systems working harder as warm air enters through adjoining spaces?

• Would better control of temperature, humidity or airflow remove some of the variability from the process?

The answers may point towards a relatively small improvement.

In other cases, they may reveal that climate control needs to be considered as part of a wider production-room or refrigeration project.

Either way, the first step is understanding where the environment is influencing the process.

Control the climate around your product

Bakers will always respond to changing ingredients, products and customer demand.

That flexibility is part of the job. That experience is an incredibly valuable commodity.

But the weather should not dictate the way an otherwise well-planned production process performs.

By controlling temperature, humidity and airflow across production areas, packaging rooms and airlocks, bakeries can create more stable conditions around both their products and their people.

The result is not a more complicated operation.

It is a more predictable one.

At KOMA UK, we work with bakeries to understand how products move through the complete production environment and where better climate control could make the greatest difference.

Sometimes that means improving one specific area.

Sometimes it means designing a connected solution across production, packaging, cooling and freezing.

But the objective is always the same: to give bakeries greater control over the conditions that influence product quality, consistency and efficiency.

Because your process should not have to chase the weather.