Read the little secrets involved in the making of delicious fresh Žito toasts, where the hands of our skilled bakers make them completely naturally from pristine ingredients, without added preservatives.

Read the little secrets involved in the making of delicious fresh Žito toasts, where the hands of our skilled bakers make them completely naturally from pristine ingredients, without added preservatives.

The best toasts are freshly toasted with a crunchy surface and a soft, milky centre. If kept in a dry and cool place, they stay fresh so long that we can hardly believe they are made from completely natural ingredients! Yet they are, because the long-term freshness of Žito toasts is not guaranteed by preservatives, but by a completely traditional process of preparing the dough from pristine ingredients, with cleanliness and controlled production under the watchful eye of technologists and bakers. Slovenian families especially love the Žito Special toasts for their white, wholegrain and buttery toast, so we begin to pack them in bags with a special clip to make opening and closing easier, storage simpler and the taste of the real toast last even longer.

Discover the secrets in their making

1. “A great deal of attention is paid to quality ingredients and special preparation processes because this is the only way to bake delicious toasts with the typical porous texture and a soft centre,” says Žito's development technologist Leonarda Kramar, who has shown us around the production bakery, where all five toast types are baked: in addition to white toast, they also make it from wholegrain wheat and rye flour, whole rye toast with lax, sunflower and sesame seeds, from pure spelt flour and gentle butter of Slovenian origin. All toasts are made according to the traditional procedure using sour dough; on the next day they add the rest of the flour and other ingredients, which are kneaded into a smooth dough by large mixing machines.
2. The dough is then put into a dividing machine, which precisely measures its weight so that the baked loaves weigh exactly 500 g, and then they are cut into 20 toast slices (the new family pack will have 4 more slices). The loaves are then formed, pressed with special rolling pins to remove the air from the dough and to make sure that the baked centre will not have large holes, but rather small and even holes. The loaves are then put into elongated moulds, where they rise slowly.
3. Based on his knowledge and experience, the baker in charge of the pre-baking assesses when the dough is fully risen and should be sent to the oven. The loaves slowly travel through the oven in covered trays, where the temperature and baking time vary according to the type of toast. In a little under an hour, the other side of the oven already smells of freshly baked toasts...
4. The hot baking trays travel out of the oven on a belt to the part where special suction devices lift the covers and gently lift the toasts out of the moulds. The baked toasts then travel to the cooling room, where they are cooled to a temperature suitable for cutting, then onwards to the packing room. This space is separated from the rest of the production zone, and the entry is restricted because cleanliness and the lowest possible contact with the products are prerequisites to the long-term use of the toast without adding preservatives.
5. In the packaging room, a saw-like knife first cuts off the ends of the loaves (they are used for animal feed), then cuts the golden baked loaves into 20 slices. The packaging machine lays the slices onto a film, welds it firmly and simultaneously sucks the air out of the resulting packages. They then heat-pasteurise the carefully wrapped toasts, wait a day or two until the slices are completely stabilised in a controlled environment and then send them to the stores. While preparing fresh or baked toasts with your favourite recipes, Žito’s technologists are already thinking about new flavours to offer...