STORY: A spooktacular range of Halloween products from CSM

A spooktacular range of Halloween products-to make goolish delights and decorate all types of creepy cupcakes, cakes and boo biscuits.

Miriam Bernhart, Director Category Bread & Pastry Solutions, CSM Ingredients:

Halloween is always one of the busiest times of the year for bakers with ranges catering a wide range of audiences. The countdown starts earlier and earlier every year with its evolution into a season rather than just one day[1] and bakers can capitalise on this with pre promotions and launching ranges as early as the beginning of October. Food plays a key role in the occasion from after school treats to family gatherings, trick or treaters and parties. Because of this consumer want an array of different products and this can include seasonal cookie tray cakes with a Halloween theme. The traditional colour ways of green, brown, orange, red, black and white will remain popular this year for a younger audience alongside a softer grown-up aesthetic to capture a new audience with softer hues of the classic autumnal colours. Bakers should be planning their ranges in September to ensure they have a range on display as early as the beginning of October.

The Amercian influence over the season is huge and recent USA research showed that budget spend is increasing there every year[2] with a total spend in 2023 of 12.2billion USA$ and this is expected to be replicated to scale in the UK with spend per person typically looking at around £80.00 including food and costumes.

Because consumers are used to seeing ongoing innovations and new variations in products this should work its way into seasonal ranges with new seasonal products accounting for 17% of all new product launches. Boo Baskets were huge trend last year and this will continue in 2024. The idea of gifting to friends and family will continue a pace with Halloween hampers packed full of Halloween treats featuring as a larger gift alongside boo baskets.

Cookies, cakes and doughnuts will feature as consumers look for a combination of seasonally decorated, quality products that can be used across a variety of occasions. Decorated with a wide range of Halloween colour themes and toppings colour and texture are important and can be tailored to customer preferences. Creepy mummies, bats, tomb stones, witches, ghouls and spooky pumpkins are perfect for doughnut decorations.  Cinnamon, pumpkin and sugared toppings will dominate flavours[3].

One of the ways that bakers can best showcase their ranges is via social media. It plays an important part as bakers can take inspiration from the latest trends to showcase their own ranges and add ons such as boo baskets alongside strong window displays and instore appeal as well as encouraging pre orders. Cookies are eternally trending on channels so ensuring a robust range, making use of baker's creativity will help drive sales, especially for younger customers. They are perfect for Halloween treats and parties and ranges should cater for all age groups as Halloween is about all ages including millennials and Gen z so ensure that products and decorations meet the demand.   Indulgent premium cookies made using mixes such as Craigmillar Plain and Chocolate cookie mixes provide economies of scale and meet budget demands as they can be use throughout the year and are convenient in that there’s the flexibility to make a batch and freeze pre-made cookie pucks and cookie slabs which can sold by the slice or whole ahead of the busy Halloween season and bake off fresh as required.  They can also be stored overnight in a sealed container to allow baked off cookies to go on sale the next day that taste as fresh as when they were first baked. It’s easy to add seasonal toppings and inclusions such as nuts, spices, seasonal decorations in the form of spider webs all in the traditional Halloween colours.  Mellomallo is a key trend for 2024 being used to create standout toppings such as ghost and monster faces, spiders and eyeballs alongside different colours branded chocolate as toppings and spider webs with bright green, orange, purple and white colourways products. Different types of cookies and price ranges including every day to premium ‘Filled Cookies’ – using various fillings such as leading confectionery brands tucked in-between cookies.  When decorating cookie traybakes utlise branded chocolate, google eyes, chocolate swirls and shavings, with white, orange and gold colourways.

Celebration cakes for Halloween parties alongside cup-cake towers and doughnut stacks made using Craigmillar Extra Moist Cake Mixes and Doughnut Concentrate are perfect during ‘spooky season’. They can be a feature of table centrepieces or used to create smaller versions for mini rewards and treats. Extra Moist Cake Mix is available in plain, chocolate and toffee, it is suitable for themed tray bakes, muffins and cakes so there’s no need to buy separate mixes. It’s exceptionally easy to use and just requires the addition of egg, oil and water. Its versatility means that it can be used to make a wide variety of cakes, and it is very cost effective. The toffee mix is well suited to both Halloween and a general autumn season theme. Cakes made with Craigmillar Extra Moist Cake Mix have an excellent shelf life so there is no need to make the products every day. Bakers can make the perfect Halloween products when combining the Extra Moist Cake Mix with Crembel Fudge Icings for various spooky toppings.

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