By Kathleen Berger, Executive Producer of Science and Technology

AB Mauri is a global baking technology company that helps produce many of the baked goods consumers eat every day, from popular breads and cakes to pizza crusts and tortillas.

“Walk in any grocery store, we’re probably in 40-45% of the baked goods you eat every day, you just don’t know us by name,” said Rick Oleshak, Vice President of Marketing, AB Mauri North America.

AB Mauri’s signature product is Fleischmann’s Yeast. Fleischmann’s Yeast products have been sold in grocery stores across the country for generations.

In the Cortex Innovation District in St. Louis, AB Mauri North America headquarters is manufacturing baking ingredients and technical solutions inside its state-of-the-art bakingHUB™ and pilot fermentation lab. This is where the science happens!

“I have a food engineering degree,” said Oscar Carreon, Ingredient Developer, AB Mauri. “Baking is a science. Different reactions happen in every bakery good. Chemistry, biology – there are a lot of things you have to learn.”

“We’ve got about 500 products,” said Oleshak. “We have chemical leaveners – baking powders and baking sodas. We have different enzyme-based technologies like mold inhibition systems and dough conditioning, structure and quality.”

The baking powders, baking sodas, dough conditioners, malts, syrups, mold inhibitors, and release agents are the ingredients for AB Mauri customers, primarily large-scale baking companies. But AB Mauri offers baking solutions for smaller bakers too.

Oleshak said AB Mauri is devoted to the baking industry by supporting and enabling the world’s bakers, both small and large. Its bakingHUB™ is making sure the customer’s recipe- ingredients and instructions – will create bakery items to perfection by the time the timer goes off!

“Ours is a much smaller scale, so it’s lab scale,” said Dana Duwe, Laboratory Supervisor. “We try to mimic everything here on a smaller scale of what they are going to be doing on a larger scale.”

“We’re trying to solve a problem that maybe they’re having on the line at a large industrial baker,” said Oleshak. “It could be an oven situation, it could be the conveyer belt, it could be the formulation if something’s not mixing right.”

Oleshak said being a step ahead is the key ingredient to success!

“Looking ahead! What’s going to be topical,” said Oleshak. “What are those trends?”

One of the bakingHUB™ technicians is working on a new egg replacement formula.

“Trying to mimic the texture, the color and mostly the structure,” said Marth Mejia, Bake Lab Technician.

“Maybe reduce reliance on egg and take out some of that volatility, with even things like bird flu that affect the demand for eggs,” said Oleshak.

The next time you are shopping for baked delights, buying Fleischmann’s Yeast or taking that bite of something so delicious, Oleshak would like for people to remember AB Mauri, St. Louis, Missouri.

Read more about AB Mauri in STL Made’s story, ‘Rising to the Occasion.’