Exclusive: Bartek’s ‘Malic Mania’ set for the World Confectionery Conference

With our World Confectionery Conference just around the corner, the event is fast taking shape around its core themes of sustainability and innovation across the industry, reports Neill Barston.

As influential sector observers have noted, 2025 has already proved a huge landmark moment for many industries, amid ongoing key issues of supply chain tests, economic uncertainties, and ongoing geopolitical matters in Ukraine and the Middle East that have impacted on business operations around the world.

Despite these wide-ranging issues, the confectionery sector in all its segments has proved itself comparatively resilient, which will be reflected in our conference presentations across equipment, systems and ingredients developments.

The latter category stars within our key areas of focus for this year’s show as it returns to the Brussels Marriott Hotel on 11 September, which is especially timely, given than many manufacturers are seeking to deliver the highest quality ingredients from reliable, efficient sources serving an international audience. Register for the World Confectionery Conference here at confectioneryconference.com

For its part, Canadian headquartered Bartek ingredients is among our speaker line-up for this year’s event, making its debut at the conference in outlining its offerings for the sweets sector with its specialisms in key Malic and fumaric acids. (See our exclusive video with Pieter Lamers of the business below, ahead of the company’s World Confectionery Conference appearance).

Notably, it has also forged fresh innovations in the creation of its Pecmate application, a pectin enhancer that has been created with core aims of improving consistency, reducing product loss for the gummy market, which in turn has asserted less manufacturing downtime occurring.

Established history
The company, which was founded in 1969, has enjoyed a significantly busy past couple of years, as the business, which has its HQ at Stoney Creek, Ontario, last year held a ground breaking ceremony for major enhancements to its facilities, which are reportedly the largest of their kind in the world.

The company’s new facility is set to prove hugely influential in increasing production capacities, as well as reportedly reducing operating emissions by a total of 80%.

pic: Bartek’s canadian facilities under development. Pic: Bartek

As previously reported, the business now employs more than 120 people across its two core production facilities. Furthermore, Bartek’s manufacturing locations are registered to the ISO 9001:2015 Standard, and it also holds the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety certification, with distribution to more than 40 countries.

Furthermore, the business has been under new management for the past six years, that has seen a significant expansion of its operations across the food and drink sector, with confectionery being an especially strong area of focus for the company.

The business, which has devised an engaging tagline  of “Malic Mania” summing up its core area of focus, has enjoyed notable success in evolving its series of applications.

Moreover, its specially formulated malic acids have been used for enhancing taste and extending product shelf life.

As the company explained, in terms of its technical capabilities, the use of malic blended into citric formulations is said to hold significantly positive imposts on total volume and costs of acids required.

Another core consideration is that such products have been found to boost sourness with product ranges, which meets a heightened global demand for confectionery in this category.

Furthermore, as the business explained, within high intensity sweetener formulations, malic acids lingering properties are said to be help increase levels of sweetness and reduce potential off flavours, which has made them a sought after ingredient.

Indeed, as Pieter Lamers, Bartek’s vice president of global sales, revealed speaking to Confectionery Production, that the company is keenly awaiting the opportunity to make its debut at our 2025 event.

“There’s a very interesting line-up of speakers for the conference, and we’re looking forward to being part of it for the first time. We expect it will provide a platform where we will meet professionals from across the industry across a number of specialisms gathered together in Brussels, which I believe will be excellent for networking, as well as discussing all the challenges that we are facing as an industry,” enthused Pieter of the event, who said that the company welcomed the chance to engage with a full-spectrum of the sector represented at the event.

As the Netherlands-based senior executive explained to Confectionery Production, he has used his extensive sector knowledge, which includes a strong industry grounding with a masters degree in Food Science & Technology from the Wageningen University and has an MBA from Nijenrode Business school, to help further the company’s continued expansion path.

He has gained significant experience to date within the sector, including having formerly worked with Purac for Corbion, as well as with major ingredients business, Kerry, which helped further his own industry knowledge.

“Bartek now has more than 50 years of experience within the sector, and acids are often known as the ‘hidden workhorses of the industry’ as they can really shape everything within a confectionery product, starting from sourness intensity, as well as creating an lingering and enhancement of certain flavours, as well as serving to mask flavours, with Malic acid being the dominant one present in many fruits.

So, if you build that in a correct way, you can optimise your recipes,” he enthuses of the fundamental role that some of these unsung heroes of the ingredient world can operate to help drive product innovation.

As he explains, as well as helping enable flavour development, the use of such acids is also said to be effective in helping create the correct PH level for hard boiled products, thus avoiding unwanted sugar inversion with a particular series of confectionery.

In terms of his own career trajectory, he says that spreading the word on how developments in ingredients can positively impact markets continues to be a rewarding aspect of his work.

He added: “As a food technologist by trade, I have always been specialised in aligning technology with business strategy and bridging the gap between the two, and particularly in field of food ingredients, that is what is needed to get the message of these functionalities in confectionery across to customers, so I am very happy to be part of the team that operates from Stoney Creek in Canada.”

Furthermore, he says that in a competitive landscape, there will always be tests that emerge, with many product trends proving cyclical in nature, as consumers wants and desires evolve.

As for the present market is concerned, he conceded that the US tariffs imposed on countries around the world had ‘created a level of pressure for all businesses,’ yet he remained optimistic that his own business was in fact positioned comparatively well in handling the situation.

In spite of such issues, he believed that there had been a good deal of positivity surrounding the company, as it prepares for the rapidly-approaching World Confectionery Conference.
– Bartek will be represented by Milad Moshfeghian, vice president of applications and innovation, at the World Confectionery Conference on 11 September. For more details, visit our dedicated website, confectioneryconference.com