Meet Ola Broström – Innovation manager with deep knowledge from the bakery industry

Our heroes. That is what we call our col­leagues, who work with research and devel­op­ment of our sweet­ened fibres. It is their knowl­edge, expe­ri­ence and dili­gent work that makes Bayn the lead­ing sup­pli­er of sweet­ened fibres. And these peo­ple are the ones that help you choose the right sweet­ened fibres, and fine-tune the com­po­si­tion for your appli­ca­tion, or cre­ate your own solu­tion for sug­ar reduc­tion. Although they are heroes, they are rarely seen and heard. We should rem­e­dy that. In a series of arti­cles, you get to meet our heroes.

In his youth, Ola Broström felt drawn to the nat­ur­al sci­ences. But dur­ing high school, there was some­thing that inter­rupt­ed him. He want­ed some­thing dif­fer­ent and became a bak­er and con­fec­tion­er. Time went by and over the years he was dri­ven by a ques­tion: How to make the per­fect bread?

That ques­tion led him to stud­ies in chem­istry, to research and even­tu­al­ly to the excit­ing world of ingre­di­ents as a prod­uct devel­op­er and tech­ni­cal salesman.
Ola has an excit­ing pro­file; He is skilled in crafts­man­ship, aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly edu­cat­ed, has a sense of strat­e­gy and has a com­mer­cial back­ground. And he is now inno­va­tion man­ag­er at Bayn.

Meet Ola Broström – one of our heroes.

What is your background and education?

I am a bak­er, con­fec­tion­er and chemist with an aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground. I can best describe myself as an inno­v­a­tive prod­uct devel­op­er with expe­ri­ence in tech­ni­cal sales.

Why did you choose chemistry?

I have often been told that I am a researcher, in the sense that I like to immerse myself in things that inter­est me. I start­ed on the nat­ur­al sci­ence pro­gram at high school, but switched course and became a bak­er and con­fec­tion­er and took a journeyman’s license. But there was a nag­ging frus­tra­tion in me and a ques­tion I want­ed to get answered.

Sounds exciting. Tell me more!

NameOla Broström

Birth1977

WorkInnovation man­ag­er

Free time:I have a great com­mit­ment to Gothenburg’s field trip club. I love spend­ing time on the horse­back as well as being in the stable.

I lack the artis­tic side that can make me a cham­pi­on in com­pe­ti­tion bak­ery. But on the oth­er hand, I was dri­ven by a ques­tion: How do I get the per­fect bread? To under­stand it, one must be able to know chem­istry and go down at a mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el. I start­ed read­ing basic organ­ic chem­istry and bio­chem­istry at the University of Gothenburg, adding food chem­istry and tech­nol­o­gy at Chalmers. I also par­tic­i­pat­ed in a course in inter­nal med­i­cine at Sahlgrenska – I want­ed to know what hap­pens in the body.

After uni­ver­si­ty, I did my grad­u­ate job ‘Bread and Health’ with a focus on glycemic index and beta-flux. In the mean­time, I worked at SIK, now RISE Agrifood and Bioscience, with heat­ing tech­niques and var­i­ous analyzes.

But you did not stay in that world, because today you are Bayn’s Innovation manager?

Correct! I got a job at Nordlander Food and worked on ana­lyzes of var­i­ous ingre­di­ents, includ­ing trans fats. I then con­tin­ued with prod­uct devel­op­ment in bak­ery prod­ucts, became a devel­op­ment man­ag­er but even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ered that I want­ed to devel­op my com­mer­cial skills. I went ahead and start­ed work­ing with tech­ni­cal sales.

Was that when you came into contact with Bayn?

Yes, I worked as a prod­uct man­ag­er and tech­ni­cal sales­man for spe­cial­ized prod­ucts at Kemi Interests now Nordic Nordmann, which is part of the glob­al Nordmann Rassmann GmbH group. We had a sup­pli­er respon­si­bil­i­ty for Eureba. I had fre­quent busi­ness con­tact with Bayn, got an open and good rela­tion­ship and when the posi­tion of Innovation man­ag­er became vacant I got a request if I did not want to work for Bayn. It was very sur­pris­ing, but I have a sol­id knowl­edge of Bayn’s prod­ucts and also a deep knowl­edge of the bak­ery industry.

How do you view Eureba as a product?

Eureba is a very inter­est­ing prod­uct for sug­ar reduc­tion. Moreover, it is total­ly con­vinc­ing from a tech­ni­cal stand­point. I am con­vinced that Eureba is the future.

Why is that?

Sugar is a well-estab­lished prod­uct in the food indus­try, but in many coun­tries, there are require­ments for food man­u­fac­tur­ers to reduce sug­ar in their prod­ucts. In Sweden, the author­i­ties are more focused on self-reg­u­la­tion of, for exam­ple, salt reduc­tion, but I both believe and hope that sug­ar will end up there too. I think we can all admit that there are exces­sive amounts of sug­ar in many food prod­ucts, and today’s con­sumers are aware of that. It’s time to do some­thing about it.

How do you do it in your daily work?

It is about let­ting the light of knowl­edge spread across the realms of the world and enlight­en­ing human­i­ty that there is a tasty alter­na­tive to refined sug­ar. How I do it varies. Basically, it’s about meet­ing peo­ple, answer­ing their ques­tions and find­ing out if they are inter­est­ed in replac­ing sug­ar in their prod­ucts. When we have estab­lished con­tact and tech­ni­cal issues arise, I am the link between our sales team and the prod­uct devel­op­ment team.

Can you tell us something about what will happen in the future?

My mis­sion is to find cre­ative solu­tions that can be put to use for our cus­tomers. Going for­ward, it is about devel­op­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of prod­ucts. We are already plan­ning for what will be need­ed in the next step. It can be about prod­ucts, ingre­di­ents, process­es or inno­v­a­tive ways of solv­ing clas­sic prob­lems. When I work with inno­va­tions, it is about com­bin­ing known phe­nom­e­na with each oth­er in ways that have not been done before.

Have you solved the question of how to make the perfect bread?

The ques­tion still dri­ves me, but now it has got anoth­er dimen­sion: How do I get the best bread – with­out sug­ar? I will return to that issue.