LAUREL, Md. -- Two product-specific entities -- the National Doughnut Board and the National Bagel Board -- created by the Retailer's Bakery Association here have set goals and procedures.
"RBA has just recently completed a restructuring of its board of directors in order to establish a board that is more representative of today's bakers," said Peter Houstle, RBA executive vice president. "Bringing representatives from major specialty segments of the retail bakery together seemed like a logical step in this process."
Each of the two boards is made up of 10 members -- six from retailing and four from allied businesses. No one from supermarkets sits on either board.
The National Doughnut Board represents the interests of anyone involved in the doughnut industry, be it single retailers, multiple-store retailers or supermarkets, said Marge Wilson of Marge's Doughnut Den, Wyoming, Mich., who will serve as the 1998 doughnut board's liaison to the RBA board of directors.
"The doughnut board was established strictly for the people that don't do anything but doughnuts; but everybody that does do doughnuts that wants some help or some expertise, we are available to them," added Wilson.
Participation on the board, moreover, is open to anyone involved in the doughnut industry, said Wilson in response to questions about supermarket participation on the new board. "If anybody in the supermarket industry wanted to be on the doughnut board, we would grab them in a big hurry," she said.
The Doughnut Board had its first working meeting in Chicago Nov. 3, and focused, among other things, on what it says are four main areas of concern to the doughnut industry: financial management, image enhancement, nutrition issues and product line expansion.
The Doughnut Board will be conducting a session on financial management for doughnut operators at the RBA's Marketplace '98, to be held March 21 to 23 in Anaheim, Calif. Other plans include developing and conducting a seminar on doughnut-specific topics, and developing a sanitation-certification program.
In its first working meeting in Chicago Nov. 4, the National Bagel Board also identified areas of focus: business planning, marketing, financial management and product line extensions. Actions taken by the board during that meeting included the formation of a Bagel Marketing Board, to be chaired by Bob Frank of Bagel Alley, Westford, Mass.; the formation of a Seminars and Audio Conferences Committee, to be chaired by Rick Greenbaum of Sig Greenbaum Inc., Bloomfield, N.J.; and the formation of the Bagel Industry Information committee, a group whose aim will be the collection of industry-related information, to be chaired by Rick Anderson of Maple Leaf Bakery, Franklin Park, Ill.
Other goals cited by the board were the creation of a network to provide assistance on bagel-related topics and the formation of a vehicle for communicating to the RBA's members in the bagel business.
Nominations for new Doughnut and Bagel Board members will be made from the general RBA membership base, the trade association said. The existing boards will then select members based in part on geographic and industry-segment representation.
Doughnut Board members will have two-year terms and one-half of the board will rotate out at each election, while Bagel Board members will have three-year terms and one-third of the board will rotate out at each election.
