Energy4Bakery – The energy-efficient SME bakery of the future

The manufacturing sector accounts for roughly one third of Austria’s total energy consumption. Around 2,100 Austrian bakeries and confectioneries contribute significantly to this, as both cooling and baking are highly energy-intensive processes. To achieve the national goal of climate neutrality by 2040, innovative solutions are urgently needed. Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in industry must be reduced. This project aims to make a meaningful contribution by developing new technological solutions through applied research, ultimately resulting in an FEI service toolkit to be offered on the market.

The project will generate innovative process techniques that consider the entire baking process and can be represented in a mathematical model. The main challenge is to precisely control time, temperature, and enzyme activity during long fermentation processes so that high-quality, flavorful baked goods can be produced with minimal resource consumption.

Project objectives:

• Applied research to strengthen the competitiveness of small and medium-sized bakery enterprises
• Contribution to the circular economy through innovative sourdoughs, energy-efficient processes, and advanced modelling methods
• Resource-efficient production of high-quality baked goods, with the aim of establishing Austrian bakery products as an international benchmark for sustainability
• Market introduction of new FEI services through an “FEI recipe toolkit”