About Bake

Bake

bake is a trade magazine for the retail baking industry, published by Sosland Publishing. Since its founding in 1987 — originally titled Baking Buyer — the magazine has evolved into what editor John Unrein calls "the quintessential resource, both online and in print, for all things baking in the retail bakery and bakery foodservice segments of the North American baking industry." Its companion website is BakeMag.com.

The 1987 Founding as Baking Buyer

The magazine was founded in 1987 under the title Baking Buyer, a business-to-business publication serving the baking industry. From the start, its mission was both educational and advisory — like most B2B publications, it aimed to inform its readers about the trends and developments affecting their businesses. The 1987 launch positioned it as a buyer's resource; the decades since have broadened that mandate to the full business of retail baking — consumer trends, ingredients, equipment, packaging, technology, and management. Over the decades, it became the Sosland brand that saw the most transformation in concept, content, and format, reflecting the dynamic food retailing marketplace it covers. Its mission today is far different, both more mature and more innovative, than the one that launched it in 1987 — a measure of how completely the retail baking world has changed around it.

The Rename to bake

Baking Buyer became bake to reflect a more modern approach to the artistry and business aspects of retail baking. "The changes were made to make the content more engaging to our audiences," says John Unrein, editor of bake and Supermarket Perimeter. The lowercase, single-word title signaled the magazine's evolution from a buyer's purchasing guide to a publication covering both the craft and commerce of retail baking — artistry and business in equal measure.

The Mission: Educational and Advisory

Like most business-to-business publications, bake's mission is both educational and advisory. It is aimed at educating the retail and specialty bakery audience about influential consumer purchasing and consumption trends affecting the current and future profitability of the fresh bakery industry, as well as spotlighting leading trends in the areas of ingredients, equipment, packaging, technology, and business management. The magazine's readers make decisions about what their bakeries sell and how they operate — and bake exists to make those decisions better informed.

The Audience

The magazine reaches retail bakery, artisan and specialty bakery, foodservice and bakery-cafe, and intermediate wholesaler audiences. That readership spans the full spectrum of the retail baking world: from neighborhood retail bakeries to artisan specialists, from bakery cafes to the wholesalers who supply them. The magazine’s communication style shifts between those audiences: wholesalers deal with customers, retailers deal with consumers, and the editorial voice adjusts accordingly — a flexibility that sets bake apart from Sosland’s other brands. The communication style shifts when serving retail bakery readers versus wholesalers — "wholesalers deal with customers, retailers deal with consumers" — and that distinction is what makes bake different from Sosland Publishing's other brands.

The Editor

John Unrein edits bake alongside Supermarket Perimeter, Sosland's publication covering the fresh perimeter of the supermarket. His dual role reflects the convergence of retail baking and supermarket fresh-food operations — the in-store bakery being one of the supermarket perimeter's key departments. The in-store bakery is one of the supermarket perimeter's key departments, and the two publications together cover the fresh-food retailing world from complementary angles. Under his editorship, the magazine has pursued its mission of covering "the changing face of retail baking" with an eye on both consumer trends and business fundamentals.

Sosland Publishing

bake is published by Sosland Publishing, the Kansas City-based B2B media company whose centennial the company marked with a retrospective series — including "Sosland Publishing 100 Years: The story of bake magazine," published in May/June 2022. The company's century in food-industry publishing gives bake institutional depth: a trade publisher that has covered the baking industry through generations of change, from the wholesale bakeries of the early twentieth century to today's artisan retail renaissance.

The Changing Face of Retail Baking

The magazine's reporting tracks the transformation of retail baking: the rise of artisan and specialty bakeries, the growth of bakery cafes, changing consumer preferences for fresh and local products, and the technology — from ingredients to equipment to packaging — reshaping how bakeries operate. Each shift — the artisan bakery renaissance, the bakery-cafe format, the clean-label movement — gets the trade-press treatment: what it means for purchasing, for operations, and for profitability. Its mission today is far different, both more mature and more innovative, than the one that launched it in 1987 — a reflection of how much the retail baking marketplace itself has changed. Consumer purchasing and consumption trends — clean label, fresh and local, premium indulgence — now drive coverage alongside the perennial concerns of ingredients, equipment, packaging, technology, and business management.

The Sosland Centennial

In 2022, Sosland Publishing marked 100 years in business with a retrospective series on its brands — including "The bake story," a May/June 2022 feature by Laurie Gorton tracing the magazine from Baking Buyer to bake. A century of food-industry publishing gives the magazine unusual institutional memory: Sosland has covered the baking industry from the wholesale bakeries of the 1920s through the supermarket revolution to today's artisan retail renaissance. The centennial retrospective — 'Sosland Publishing 100 Years: The story of bake magazine' — framed the title as the company's most transformed brand, its evolution from Baking Buyer to bake mirroring the industry's own journey from commodity wholesaling to artisan retailing. That long view informs bake's reporting, which treats each new trend — clean label, artisan methods, bakery-cafe formats — as part of a longer industry story. Few trade magazines can claim a publisher with a century of category memory; bake's reporting draws on it, treating each new industry turn as the latest chapter in a story Sosland has been telling since the 1920s.

Artistry and Business

The rename from Baking Buyer to bake captured the magazine's dual editorial identity: "a more modern approach to the artistry and business aspects of retail baking." The artistry — the craft of the baker, the quality of the product, the visual appeal of the display case — and the business — profitability, purchasing trends, equipment investment, labor management — get equal weight. For retail bakers, who are simultaneously craftspeople and small-business owners, that balance is the magazine's essential value: it speaks to both sides of their working lives.

Print and Digital

bake magazine and BakeMag.com together serve as the brand's print and digital arms — "the quintessential resources, both online and in print, for all things baking." The website extends the magazine's coverage with news, trends, and resources for the retail bakery and bakery foodservice segments, while the print magazine delivers the in-depth features and analysis the trade has relied on since 1987. Together they are, in Unrein’s words, “the quintessential resources — both online and in print — for all things baking” in their North American market.

Official Website

bake's official website is https://www.bakemag.com, offering news, trends, and resources for the retail bakery and bakery foodservice segments of the North American baking industry — the quintessential online resource for the trade. The magazine is published by Sosland Publishing of Kansas City, now in its second century of food-industry publishing.