How to keep your sandwich bread fresh throughout the day

1. Choose the right type of bread

Bread with added fat takes longer to go stale. That’s why a baguette should be eaten the day it is baked, but a ciabatta or a brioche will be fine for longer. This is also due to its long and narrow shape – so consider all of this when picking the bread for your sandwiches.

The ingredients used in the dough also play a significant role. Whole grain or rye are longer lasting than white wheat bread, for instance.

Since it is a challenge to keep bread moist and crisp after it leaves the oven, frozen par-baked or fully-baked bread is the solution to this problem for many sandwich shops. This will not only increase sales, but also lower the amount of food wasted as you can control the amount of product you thaw.

Freezing bread in the state that it was right after leaving the oven with a crusty crust and a soft interior is by far the best way to preserve it and allows you to avoid adding chemical preservatives. Freezing bread greatly slows down the staling process and by baking off par-baked bread in your own oven or simply grilling or toasting fully-baked bread you will re-gelatinize the starches and make the bread crisp and soft again.

2. Storing your bread correctly

Bread goes stale faster in a refrigerator than at room temperature. This is because the starch molecules crystallize, and the bread gets tough.

And to the question about whether plastic or paper is best for wrapping bread – the answer is neither: If you store the bread on the countertop in a plastic bag or wrapped in foil, it will keep it from going stale – but the crust will suffer due to moisture being trapped.

If you keep it in paper wrapping this will retain some of the crispiness of the crust but will leave it exposed to air and thereby the staling process. That’s why we recommend using frozen bread where you can control how much you thaw and aren’t storing at room temperature for long periods.

3. Pick the right wrapping

No matter how crispy the crust, a sandwich will always be a delicate thing that needs to be wrapped properly until it’s eaten. Choose one of the following wrappings for the best protection:

Parchment paper is good when you want to keep a sandwich from falling apart. This is the preferred methods of wrapping – and can even keep a sandwich or a bagel in one piece even when it’s cut it two.

Foil will keep your sandwich warm if you make paninis or other toasted sandwiches. This will also make it easier to re-heat if the customer so wishes.

Plastic bags can be necessary for foil- or paper-wrapped sandwiches that are really fragrant or leak. Consider using bags with small holes to let the sandwich “breath”.