Although waste-reduction is perhaps the most obvious commercial benefit of stocking products with longer shelf-lives, our doughnuts offer another saving that is especially important today. That is to say, they are transported and displayed at ambient temperatures, so they don’t require retailers to freeze or refrigerate them – and that, in turn, means an important energy saving.

Energy costs have rocketed since the invasion of Ukraine, becoming one of the most powerful and pervasive forces now driving global inflation. For most large retailers, the single largest source of energy consumption is typically their freezers and refrigerators, which can account for between a third and a half all of all electrical power consumed.

Ambient products therefore offer an obvious advantage, in that they don’t require that energy to be used in the first place. If a retailer switches from frozen to longer-lasting ambient products, it may be able to operate with fewer freezers overall, which would reduce energy consumption and deliver better profits with greater cost certainty.

In addition, stocking ambient products with a long shelf-life simplifies operations and yields savings on staff time. In the case of Simply Doughnuts products, they can be placed immediately on the retail shelf with no intermediate stages. Staff therefore don’t have to spend time moving them into freezers, then subsequently defrosting them, putting them out for display and maintaining stock control records at each stage.

This twofold saving is especially important at a time when energy prices are so high. And, of course, energy savings also make an important contribution to the industry’s net zero ambitions.

Our continuing research into extended shelf-lives is another example of the efforts we’re making to cut costs and to protect our retail clients from avoidable price rises.