== Name: Accurist2 divider and Multitex4 moulder ==

An angry celebration cake-maker sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that was before the likes of Marks & Spencer and Waitrose muscled into the gentle world of cake decoration.

Trying to fit a square pie into a round hole is all well and good if your intended aperture is a mouth, and not an ill- fitting retail concept. Square Pie's star was rising throughout the past decade, nimbly transferring its pie and mash food-to-go brand into shopping centres, markets, department stores and travel. Feeling they could do no wrong, they did just that, and stretched the brand too far by launching a sit-in restaurant three years ago.

Coffee is an addiction. As with many addictive substances, dabblers get the munchies. Not even a blood-letting recession has weaned hard-pressed cocoa-heads off their Jobseekers Allowance-busting £2.35 macchiato hit, and as such, coffee chains continue to be the dominant peddler of baked goods for caffeine junkies on the high street.

Honeybuns' cafe at Glastonbury has always been a good spot to shelter from the howling wind and rain, and dry out your boots before trench foot sets in, so bad has the weather been at Britain's largest music festival for the past few years. This year, however, the Dorset-based cake company provided sanctuary for festival-goers in search of some shade from the glorious sunshine that bathed the campsite over the weekend, not to mention a civilised cup of tea and cake.

A visit to an industrial bakery in Britain will usually reveal that its processing lines are continuous, from the make-up plant through to packaging. However, it is not often that you encounter a continuous or fully automated batch mixing system, although there are rare exceptions.

The use of fruits, nuts and seeds in bakery continues to be an ever-popular trend and, despite the increase in the price of ingredients, one that looks set to continue. Fruits such as sultanas, currants and raisins have remained mainstays in bakery over the years and have been joined by alternatives, such as cranberries. So why should bakers use these ingredients in their products?

Birds supplies its 53 shops with more than 15 varieties of bread from its Ascot Drive bakery. Production stops at 3am on Saturday mornings and starts up again at 6pm on Sunday evenings, so installing new equipment is a challenge in time management.

Landlords are a much-maligned breed, exemplified by Alexei Sayle's Harry the Bastard in The Young Ones, who would regularly pop up to put his jackboot through his tenants' TV, proclaiming, "That's £700 you owe me!" But the tables are being turned on the Harrys of commercial property, who have grown accustomed to dictating terms and demanding rent increases.

It's a sign of our environmentally conscious times that reducing food waste was one of the driving factors behind Honeytop Speciality Foods' decision to invest in technology for applying resealable closures to a line of own-label tortilla wraps.

For every yin, there is always a yang. While some firms suffer in the face of recession, pie producers can take heart that comfort foods are on the up, with Mintel even revising its market growth figures upwards.

Despite stemming from an Australian concept, BB's Coffee & Muffins appears British in every sense, and certainly caters for our love of tea and cake. But that's not all it offers. Producing freshly baked goods on a daily basis and the ability to understand its customers' needs are just some of the reasons it won The Customer Focus Award, sponsored by BakeMark UK, at last year's Baking Industry Awards.

Bakery is an industry full of challenges, but also of immense importance to customers, and everyone has an opinion and an emotional response to the category. I'm a customer, former manufacturer - I worked from 2004-2007 for RHM - and current retailer, a blend that I hope allows me a different perspective and a valuable opinion. I will let you judge that.

Consultants with specialist knowledge of the sector say that bakery businesses should no longer expect to see year-on-year reductions in insurance premiums, even where they take steps to reduce risks.

Judging by the number of bakery suppliers working the room at the UK Coffee Leader Summit 2009 two weeks ago, you could easily imagine 2010's event being rebranded the UK Coffee & Bakery Bandwagon Jumpers' Summit. And why not? With the branded coffee sector set to grow by at least another 1,000 outlets before it gets anywhere near saturation, who can blame them?

I couldn't decide whether it's genius or a disaster..." was one onlooker's response after being introduced to the twin-cyclone effect of the Lewis brothers and their artisan bakery concept.

Rather than finding a happy half-way house between the demands of health campaigners and the needs of plant bakers, the Food Standards Agency's (FSA's) 2012 salt reduction targets were greeted with criticism from both sides when they were published last month.

Environmentally friendly packaging is not only a good way for your business to 'do its bit', but can also act as a selling point for goods, as consumers become increasingly aware of their benefits. But are eco-only packaging companies better than generic companies that offer sustainable options as part of their range?

The market for small treats has benefited as recession-hit consumers seek comfort in cakes. "Consumers still appear to have a taste for small cake products," says Michael Evans, communications manager for cakes giant Greencore. "Tubs of mini cake rolls, bars, flapjack bites and the like are still fairly prominent in retailers' fixtures, with almost 90% of households buying small cakes, partaking on average 15 times a year," he says. Indeed small cakes make up the largest sector of the £1.3 bn ambient cake market, standing at £464m and growing at 6.6% per year. "Promotional activity has inevitably helped generate some of this growth," he explains.

Benier - how do you pronounce it? Well, it's not 'benny-er', though many of us may have thought so. It's more like 'ben ear' and MD David Marsh has a useful way of helping customers and hapless journalists remember. He says we should just think of the phrase 'bin 'ere, done that!' and it works! Just try it.

As craft bakers, along with other independent retailers, you may be feeling the pinch. Cost-cutting is important and, at times like these, it seems an easy option to stop spending time or money on marketing and publicity. But this would be a mistake. Your customers, the consumers, are also feeling vulnerable and uncertain of what lies ahead, so now is the time to communicate with them through all means available. You must reassure them that they still get the best value for money and quality from their local craft baker.

Competitions, karaoke and camaraderie were just a few of the ingredients that went into an eventful May Bank Holiday weekend at the Alliance of Bakery Students and Trainees' (ABST) conference in Torquay.

Close to 2,000 jobs could be at risk in the Irish Republic baking industry as supermarkets sell bread at big discounts. Jobs under threat are in production, distribution, van sales and among shop staff. And at least one major plant bakery is at risk of closure.

As we now all know, the credit crunch has developed over recent months from a phenomenon mainly affecting the banking and capital markets, to a full recession, impacting on every aspect of the economy. As a lawyer specialising in food transactions, it is clear that 2009 will be a very difficult year for mainstream corporate finance activity.

The 2009 version of this small automatic dough dividing and rounding machine is on the market. The König Mini Rex is now available to through European Process Plant featuring enhancements to the design of the dividing and rounding system, which mean the weight range has been extended to 13g-140g.

Flexibility seems to be the order of the day. The new Vemag dough divider line by Reiser claims to offer greater weight accuracy, versatility and adaptability to handle a range of breads, rolls, buns and English muffins.

Well, newish - it was first shown last year at Europain in Paris and at Interpack in Düsseldorf. This industrial bread line from Rondo is designed to meet the trend for making bread from a dough band. Dividers have dominated for many years, but some industrial bakers have been turning towards production from a continuous dough band.

Turning your hand to a bit of DIY is the obvious riposte to the credit crunch. From bringing your own sandwiches to work to washing the car yourself, there are savings to be made if you are prepared to suffer a little inconvenience.

Readers, please picture the following scene - with the caveat that it's not for the faint-hearted, and British Baker cannot be held responsible for any tears which might be shed: "We found an outstanding sandwich shop in the centre of Leeds. The woman was actually cutting the chicken off the bone. It was hot and she was putting it into the sandwich. She was cutting the avocado fresh. It was emotional."

It is an unfortunate fact that bakers are being driven to manufacture products with less choice of margarines and fats and are being called upon, more than ever, to use their innovative and creative skills to turn bland ingredients into tasty, attractive bakery products. Saturated fats are the latest target of the Food Standards Agency, following the demonising of trans-fats of recent years, which have since been eradicated from most products.

The Village Bakery in Melmerby is an organic operation in every sense of the word. Producing a wide range of bakery products, including wheat, gluten and dairy-free organic ranges, its commitment to standards and innovative branding won over the judges at last year's Baking Industry Awards, which saw it take home The Organic Award, sponsored by Asda.

Earlier this month it was announced that 18 catering companies and restaurants, including the likes of Pret A Manger and Subway, are to display the calorie content of their products in-store. This move is the first of its kind and has been brought about through the joint efforts of the Foods Standards Agency (FSA) and the Department of Health. The aim is to help consumers make more informed choices about the food they buy, but will it affect consumers' purchasing decisions? And will other bakery retailers be getting involved?

Ilapak's latest packaging machines offer several energy-saving features, including greater thermal efficiency of sealing jaws and rollers and the use of energy recuperation systems in the motor drives.

An easy way of packaging shortbread fingers - one of the trickier bakery and confectionery products to wrap because they are brittle and tend to crumble during the packaging process. The system is based around the Redpack P325 flow-wrapper, which is found in many bakery and confectionery production units.

Whatever you want, if tailor-made horizontal flow-wrapping machines and automatic feeding systems are your thing.

Three Fuji Alpha 6

James Gibson of cake decorations company Sweet Sensations knows he is swimming against the tide as he speaks up in defence of synthetic food colours in icing sugar and marzipan.

Despite the fact the recession is impacting the sales of juices and smoothies, bakers can still market these products to their advantage by focusing on trends that remain strong, such as health. The Americans seem to be ahead of the UK on this one, with many bakery and juice bars dotted across the nation, balancing the treat of a sweet pastry with a nutritious juice.

Located in the heart of the Cotswold hills in the picturesque village of Shipton-under-Wychwood, specialist independent flour miller FWP Matthews has been putting its money where its mouth is.

There's nothing quite like a good, juicy dust-up between industry giants to shake things up, is there? Especially when it's between two heavyweights who are about to knock ten shades of - shall we say chocolate brownies - out of each other.

A cheaper 2-group traditional espresso machine and grinder will cost you about £2,500-£3,500, with more premium models going up to about £6,000. This is quite an investment for a bakery wanting to add coffee to its offer, but it would allow you to sell the most popular drinks, such as cappuccino and latte. However, there are cheaper ways into the coffee market and filter machines start from as low as £190.

With a glut of food-to-go and sandwich outlets offering special coffee deals, such as recessionary £1 coffees linked to meal deal promotions, as seen in the likes of Pret, Upper Crust and Coffee Republic, focus is shifting from pushing premium coffees to just making sure consumers stay hooked on their daily coffee fix. This poses the question: if you are about to buy coffee equipment, should you go for cheaper filter or instant options or stay true to the premium ground espresso machines?

The economic winds of change seem to be blowing people's cookie-buying habits within in-store bakery (ISB) in strangely different directions at the moment. Buffeted by the storms of recession, shoppers have latched on to trusted brands, buying more licensed cookies, while at the same time jumping ship from 'premium' products to better-value 'standard' ranges.

Athree-year research project, subjecting wheat to a battery of routine and newly devised tests, has identified accurate and rapid methods for bakers and millers to quantify flour's quality and usability.

In-store bakeries (ISBs) are perfectly placed to meet today's consumer demands for freshly made food and retail theatre. This is why the In-store Bakery Award is such an important category at this year's Baking Industry Awards.

== baker of the year Sponsored by Vandemoortele ==

When observing Jane Hatton in teacher mode with her 'team' of students at Brooklands College, it's not hard to see why she's suited to the job. Despite having a somewhat winding career path herself, the lecturer now steers students at the college in Weybridge, Surrey, towards their future, and her successful results are just part of what won her The Achievement in Bakery Training Award at the Baking Industry Awards last year.

TasteTech: you could assume the name stands for taste technology and you'd be spot on. But aren't tastes, or 'flavourings' as they are called, those artificial things that we really don't need?

There are few people in the industry more passionate about training than self-styled Geordie Baker Ian Thomson. You'd also be hard pressed to find a baker more single-minded about getting booze into bread, but more of that later.

Cleaning schedules and food safety management systems are hardly the most exciting of subjects. But thanks to the controversial Scores on the Doors scheme, a lot of people have become surprisingly hot under the collar about hygiene standards - and bakers, supermarkets and cafés are no exception.

A combi-oven can hardly be accused of being a one-trick pony, unless said pony is capable of carrying out an array of different cooking tasks. For bakery retailers wanting to offer a range of different products, from bake-off pasties to pizzas and quiches, a combi oven is certainly capable of doing the job.

Walk into your average bakery outlet and, nine times out of 10, you're confronted with a fridge full of familiar soft drinks courtesy of a well-known-manufacturer. And while these established products are often viewed as the prudent choice, it might be time to reassess your range. Not only can your drink extras create extra sales, they can also help enhance your brand identity and assure customers of your discernment.

The clock is ticking on the 2009 Baking Industry Awards and the search is on again to find the baking industry's high fliers and success stories. The awards, now in their 22nd year, recognise the hard work and passion of the people and companies that make the British baking industry one of the most exciting and innovative in the world.

Designing somebody's birthday cake and creating sugarpaste figures to go on it is all in a day's work for cake decorator Leanne Tang, but this doesn't mean it all comes easily. The winner of Renshaw-sponsored Celebration Cake Maker of the Year at the Baking Industry Awards 2008, says one of the most challenging parts of the competition was trying to keep her showgirls' heads on with spaghetti.

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In recent years, the independent craft bakery sector has sometimes struggled to promote itself to customers and potential employees. Now, the time has come to banish the 'humble baker' persona and start shouting about yourselves!

How do you grow in a recession? That was one of the interesting topics discussed at the recent British Confectioners' Association meeting in Gloucester.

There's no better symbol of how the world has been turned on its head than the jammy doughnut. At the beginning of last year the poor old ball doughnut was in a sorry state. Sales had been declining for several years, with sexy young newcomers such as iced ring doughnuts, making all the running. It looked like the jam doughnut's best days were behind it.

The breakfast cereals industry was quick to fully capitalise on the potential for marketing the health benefits of wholegrain. In contrast, bakery is only now truly catching up, with a glut of wholegrain wrapped bread launches in recent months.

Despite the fact that the founders of The Village Bakery in Coedpoeth, North Wales, came from a plant background, the business was founded on craft ideals and principles. These have always been important to the company and no doubt played their part in the company scooping the Rank Hovis-sponsored Craft Business Award at last years' Baking Industry Awards.

Are you a baker training at college or with a company? Are you a keen apprentice? Are you a company with good trainees who deserve recognition? Or perhaps you are a bakery trainer with some outstanding students, whom you feel should be noticed.

In today's challenging trading environment, simply meeting customers' expectations is not enough - we need to surpass them," says John Lindsay, who is country manager and business unit director at BakeMark UK.

The focus of this award is not about size of operation or number of shops, but about product excellence, enterprise and ideas, says UK miller Rank Hovis, which is proud to once again sponsor The Craft Business Award in 2009.

Innovation is the lifeblood of any industry - and the baking industry is no exception. This is why Asda is pleased to support the newly launched Innovation Award, which recognises the companies that are driving the sector forward.

Renshawnapier is proud to continue its support of the industry by sponsoring Celebration Cake Maker of the Year once again.

Successful partnerships between suppliers and customers are vital in driving the baking industry forward. To help encourage and recognise the strong relationships that have been built in the sector, Sainsbury's is delighted to once again sponsor Bakery Supplier of the Year.

ADM Milling is delighted to sponsor Bakery Food Manufacturer of the Year for the seventh time. This year, we are looking for businesses that represent all corners of the food baking industry. Whether they are businesses that have grown from traditional craft bakery roots to become excellent specialist bakeries or large bakery manufacturers with a strong market presence - all are encouraged to enter.

The Achievement in Bakery Training Award is open to individuals and companies that have either initiated or been involved in successful training programmes. The award is once again sponsored by Rich Products, a leading provider of premium, indulgent frozen and ambient bakery products. Entrants do not have to be a customer of Rich's to apply.

Matching the high standards set by least year's entrants to the Baker of the Year category will be tough, but sponsor Vandemoortele is sure that the industry's top bakers will rise to the challenge.

In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to recognise the passion and hard work of Britain's best bakers and bakery companies. Times may be tough for some, but we must not forget that there are still a huge number of highly successful people and businesses in the baking industry, producing top-quality products at affordable prices.

Sauces and dressings are not something that come instantly to mind when thinking about bakery, but they are an integral part of adding flavour - not to mention a point of difference - to a sandwich, wrap or a panini.

Patisserie, Danish, Viennoiserie... they're all interchangeable titles for the same thing, aren't they? Well, sometimes, but you'd be best advised not to mix them up if you're doing a category analysis. According to one market analyst's definition, sales of one of those categories soared nearly 17% last year, while another dropped nearly a third and the remaining one fared pretty solidly.

Jumping up six places in British Baker's Top 50 bakery retailers table this January, was UK coffee chain Coffee Republic. Currently at ninth place, up from 15 last year, the firm has seen massive expansion in the last year and shows no signs of slowing down.

Forget yer bells and whistles. When it came to winning the Tesco-sponsored Quality Product Award at the Baking Industry Awards 2008, Jackson's Bakery opted not to throw the kitchen sink into its hand-raised Traditional Steak Pie - thankfully for the dental health of the residents of Chesterfield. For Jackson's, less was clearly more - apart, that is, from the meat content, where more is clearly more, with 30% meat, all sourced from a good local butcher.

A high-street shop with a retail front-end and any of a variety of eat-in options could be dismissed as 'neither fish nor fowl'. It can also prove to be something of a phoenix for a business that is marking time.

Bananas are available all year round, but in the months when there is less fresh seasonal fruit around, bananas are good stand-bys. They are grown in India, China, Africa, South and Central America, Australia and the Caribbean. The Windward Islands, in particular, produce a high-quality crop.

Jo Fairley is co-owner of Judges organic bakery and grocery in Hastings and co-founded Green & Black's chocolate firm with hubby Craig Sams

In the blink of an eye Christmas is gone, it's the New Year and the time of resolutions - eat less, drink less, and yes, now spend less. At some point between Christmas and the New Year the left-over mince pies do their disappearing acts to make way for the definitive mountains of hot cross buns. In Britain we're a bit thin on the ground as far as the choice of Easter baked goods are concerned, which surely must be a little commercially short-sighted. Why is there less innovation in breads and cakes at Easter than at Christmas?

Sveba-Dahlen ovens and provers

l Sveba-Dahlen makes rack ovens, deck ovens, pizza ovens, tunnel ovens and provers of all sizes

Think of Swedish food and pickled herring and meatballs are bound to come to mind. The good news for Swedish bakers is that both these national delicacies are usually served with bread. Visit a Swedish restaurant and the table will likely feature a basket of various types of bread - from traditional rye to Continental specialities such as French sticks and Italian ciabattas.

History: First opened in 1936 by Chris' father, before Chris joined in 1968. Chris' son Douglas is also a baker, working at The Cavan Bakery in Hampton, Middlesex

l It pays to have several suppliers, so you can negotiate better deals. We buy our flour from ADM, Heygates and Marriages - it keeps them on their toes

Chris Beaney must be one of the few people left in the country with a good word to say about the banks. The owner of Beaney's Bakery in Strood, Kent, who is also currently President of the National Association of Master Bakers (NAMB), recently secured generous financial backing from his local Barclays to take over a shop and bakery in the nearby town of Snodland in West Malling. "My bank manager has been really supportive. I was surprised how keen he was to help out when I went to see him about buying the bakery," says Beaney.

"When you win something, my first feeling is for the staff, as it's fantastic for them, but my second is for the two companies that didn't win. Everyone did a fantastic job and we were very proud to be nominated, and to be recognised for doing a good job. However, it's all very well saying that we're the best, but now we've got to carry on being the best - I use it as a bit of a motivating tool."

"It was the first time I had been to an awards night, but I felt very much at ease all evening, and I really did enjoy it. It was nice to meet people, because the baking industry is an incredible trade - you can still go to bed at night excited about what you're going to do the next day. One thought I had at the awards, when I looked around the room at everyone there, was: 'Blimey, I hope I can be as good as all of them'."

Cornish baker WC Rowe had never competed for a Baking Industry Award before, but a mixture of curiosity, pride and belief spurred them on and 2008 saw the company triumph in the Bakery Supplier of the Year category. Distributing branded and own-brand to all the major multiples - Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Somerfield, as well as Supplier of the Year award sponsor Sainsbury's - the firm has a story to tell and one it wants people to hear.

Forget websites and email, the latest online marketing tool is social networking, through sites such as Bebo and Facebook. Essentially online communities, where people communicate through their own personal web pages, social networks offer huge potential for companies keen to raise awareness of their brands.

Tesco opened its first Tesco Express outlet in October 2002 and now has 880. Not bad for six years' work.

On a cold winter's day there are few things more comforting than a hearty bowl of soup. And for a light summer lunch, a flavourful consommé or a healthy bisque can be the ideal alternative to a plain sandwich or meagre salad - not to mention as a snack at any time of the day, or to pad out smaller lunch bites with a heartier option.

What can you do that's new with a panini? Good question. Speed up the delivery, perhaps? Experiment with flavours? Or how about selling one that doesn't dislodge your fillings?

CSM's new Innovation Centre (IC) is all about... well, innovation. But what issues will the bakery supplier be looking at when it comes to long-standing products, such as cookies, brownies and doughnuts and how they can be developed? "Everybody knows there are doughnut rings and ball doughnuts, and everybody knows they can be iced, and decorated and so on, but what else can you do? What else is possible? For example, what about different shapes or different sizes?" These are the sorts of issues CSM will be looking at, explains IC and development director Kerstin Schmidt.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and KPMG, employers who were holding off making redundancies have reconsidered their position as a result of deteriorating economic conditions.

Last year was a tough year for high street retailers, with the shock demise of iconic high street brand Woolworths perhaps best capturing the turmoil facing traders. Bakery retailers were just recovering from runaway commodity, ingredients and utilities prices at the start of the year, when the economy went berserk as the newly-coined "credit crunch" started to play out in the UK. Property prices plunged, consumer spending predictions were thrown into the unknown and availability of institutional funding dried up.

Astraw poll of bakeries up and down the country has revealed that the meltdown on the high street witnessed by non-food retailers has not yet infected bakery retailers. While many felt twitchy throughout December, the last few days before Christmas came good, with sales often matching - or even exceeding - those of 2007.

Stocking smoothies has been a no-brainer for the past few years. Led by the phenomenon that is Innocent, sales of the drinks grew 424% in value between 2003 and 2007, and 552% in volume, according to research firm Mintel.

Cheese and onion - it's one of those classic flavour combinations that never goes out of fashion. Whether in bread, as a flavouring for crisps, a sandwich or a pasty filling, putting cheese and onion together just works.

Wandering the mean streets of New York, it's clear that the low-carb diet craze of a few years ago has long since been forgotten. Despite rumours of a resurgence, it seems like almost everyone rushing around Manhattan is either munching on a bagel or clutching an artisan loaf.

With Turkish, Greek and Kurdish communities on its doorstep and a bevy of Polish, Russian and Ukranian neighbours, it's fair to say that Yasar Halim's patisserie, in Haringey, North London, has a tough job to keep all of its customers happy.

With the current economic problems, companies are reviewing their arrangements with suppliers and seeing where savings can be made. One element of this is that firms are increasingly looking at pricing structures in place and reviewing their position with regards to providers.

The EC Commission has published a proposal to update and simplify the complex and long-standing rules that control food labelling. As a Regulation, the final text adopted will apply directly in Member States, without national redrafting or the scope for gold-plating. This would prevent, more reliably than previously, the emergence of bar-riers to trade between Member States on the basis of food labelling inconsistencies. Negotiations are ongoing and the final text may be significantly different from that currently proposed, but bakery manufacturers and retailers need to be aware of what's on the table.

It took several hundred loaves of bread, a tonne of ostrich meat and 1,500 chefs to prepare. But Iran's attempt to make the world's largest ostrich sandwich wasn't just to notch up an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. The monster snack was also created to raise the profile of healthy eating - given ostrich meat's reputation as a low-fat, low-cholesterol alternative to chicken.

Oliver Blank is from Aichinger, a German shopfitting firm handling the McCafé roll-out over there, as well as Birds of Derby and Waterfields over here. Richard Hamilton of Agile Space's clients have included Pret A Manger, Lovejuice, Itsu, FooGo and independent coffee and bakery retailers. Franco Costa heads up Costagroup - a cutting-edge Italian shopfitter that has fitted everywhere from McDonald's in Italy to Paul in France.

A long-time destination for anything from gay bondage wear to, well, gay bondage, pockmarked with seedy snaking stairways and haunted by trench-coated gents shuffling into ribbon-stripped doorways, Soho is the scene of many a piquant fancy. Not least of these is Alan Yau's altogether more salubrious fetish: opening eating holes.

We bake our cakes with eggs fresh from the farm, which gives them a really good colour," says Liz Hedges of Bryngwenyn Farm, who hand-collects eggs from her brood of hens daily. "We believe in proper free-range chickens, which can make it a bit harder to locate the eggs!" she adds. But despite the extra trouble tracking down the odd maverick chicken nest, the resulting cakes have proved a popular seller in her on-site shop. "I always baked cakes and, when we opened the shop, it seemed natural that there would be a cakes offering," says Hedges.

At the European Coffee Symposium held in London recently, Paul Ettinger, head of international food and beverages at Caffè Nero, said Britain's coffee shop sector needs to look at new ways of minimising the impact of the recession, including attracting more evening trade, selling more iced drinks and, possibly, selling alcohol.

Front-of-pack nutritional labelling is one of the few catering legislations that bakery retailers usually don't have to worry about. And with food hygiene, staffing, taxes and other legal paperwork to deal with, it's an issue few would voluntarily add to their tasks.

Advances in flow-wrap technology are set to benefit bakery businesses, providing greater flexibility and ensuring high-quality display packs.

Health may appear to be the driving force in bakery lately, but the main thing bakers are after when it comes to fats and oils is performance. After all, there is little point in producing pastry with an incredibly low fat content if it's going to taste like cardboard.

With the much talked-about credit crunch and economic downturn now setting in and the dreaded 'R' word about to reach our shores, consumers are having to be so much more careful about how they spend their hard-earned cash at lunchtimes, while still demanding to be well-fed and, most importantly, enjoying the same quality of food they did before hard times began to set in.

Student life is all about long sessions in cafés and bars, a frantic social life and minimal studying, right? A captive audience, and a gift to caterers and food-on-the-go brands.

As the yellow Chinese dragon reared its head and the drumming of the band became more frenzied, passers-by stopped to stare at the spectacle threading its way through Manchester's busy streets. Behind the dragon was a formation of British and overseas members of the International Richemont Club, on their way to a special Chinese banquet to kick off a three-day gala, hosted by the British members.

Chocolate has traditionally been seen as being something of an indulgence, but consumer demand for healthy alternatives has even stretched as far as this cocoa delight. As well as health, premium products are on the up, as is origin chocolate. So what new products are manufacturers and suppliers offering?

It started with a few well-known chains offering breakfast muffins and pastries. But getting creative with breakfast can be a way to keep your cash tills ringing all day long. So whether it's savoury muffins made with cheese and courgettes, or a stock of homemade jam to accompany your fresh buttered toast, the breakfast trade can be a great way to keep your customers coming back for more.

Adding nuts to products can be an expensive business. So while prices escalate, a cheaper option than some of the exotic tree nuts could be using peanuts. Even cheaper than whole nuts, peanut flour was recently launched into the UK with a variety of US-style applications touted. It can be used as a healthy, protein-rich ingredient in a range of goods, including cereal bars, cakes, biscuits and confectionery, diet and nutritional bars. It can also control the fat migration of the high fat centres, as well as enhance flavour and texture. Extracted from the oil of roasted peanut seed, peanut flour normally contains around 50% protein.

Soaring ingredients prices have been one of the talking points of the baking industry this year. With global demand increasing and speculation pushing prices higher, securing a reliable supply route is more challenging than ever for bakers.

The baking industry has always had a large element of indulgence about it - from cream cakes to doughnuts - but consumers are looking for healthier options when it comes to their daily bread. The focus used to be on what can be taken out of bakery products to make them more healthy - lower fat and salt content for example. But now it has shifted to what additional ingredients can go in.

3663 - named because it spells 'food' on a phone (unless you're using a Blackberry, in which case it spells 'rffr') - has fast become one of the UK's foodservice giants since its rebirth out of the ailing Booker in 1999.

Even a tiny slice of the government's estimated £2bn spend on food and catering in the public sector provides a mouth- watering prospect for bakery and ingredients suppliers.

Winner BB's Coffee & Muffins

Winner Tesco, Meltham Lane,

Winner Leanne Tang

Winner Crantock Bakery

Winner Jacksons the Bakers -

Winner Eurobuns - Skinny

Winner Jane Hatton

Winner WC Rowe

Winner The Village Bakery

Winner Piero Scacco

The British Baker Award for Special Achievement

This year's winner of the British Baker Award for Special Achievement, John Slattery, is in good company, with names such as baker Charles Geary, cereals scientist Stan Cauvain and bakery tutor Jean Grieves.

A very big

Despite an almost non-existent summer, it's nearly back to school time. Among other things, this is a time when mums and dads will be forced to face the issue of what they can put in their children's lunchboxes.

Up to 150,000 sewer blockages each year are caused by fats, oils and grease (FOG) being thrown down sinks and drains. The time and expense involved in unblocking drains and subsequent clean-up operations can have an immediate impact on the bottom line.

The icing on a cake can fulfil a number of requirements. It can be used to make a cake more aesthetically pleasing and can pull together the theme of an occasion. It can be used to keep a cake fresh and help products stand out from their competitors. But icing a cake is not always a sweet success.

Cuisine de France's national account manager, Sharon Carney, says that winning the Customer Focus Award, sponsored by BakeMark, at last year's Baking Industry Awards was a triumph for the business - not to mention a great opportunity to meet Joanna Lumley!

In early June, shortly after becoming chief executive of Greggs, Ken McMeikan went to work at one of the bakery retailers' Leeds shops. Rather than reading reports from the comfort of his new office in Newcastle, McMeikan spent his first week pitching in with shop staff, making sandwiches, baking off savouries and working the till.

You may ask yourselves, "Why should I move to quality coffee?" Compare the coffee industry to the wine industry and think back to when the UK drank very little wine - when our knowledge did not extend past drinking Blue Nun. Now, a lot of UK consumers have a basic understanding of different grape varieties and different wine-producing countries. Coffee has the same complexities and the consumer is becoming increasingly aware of the subtle differences.

They laughed, they clapped and they cheered as retailer Asda's commercial bakery director, Huw Edwards, took to the stage at Birmingham's famous Belfry to host Asda's own internal Bakery of the Year awards.

Subway is set to become the UK's biggest bakery retailer in the New Year if it continues its current rate of growth, pushing Greggs from premier position.

It's a fairly tricky ask, reinventing the wheel - possibly as challenging as reinventing that bakery stalwart, the divider moulder. "There's a lot of old equipment out there that's just brought back with a facelift," is the assessment from Interbake's David Dunne, which would be a somewhat downbeat way to open an article on innovations in this area of the machinery market. Thankfully, he adds that the bits that have been developed in recent times are simple tweaks to make day-to-day operations easier. That can mean anything from safeguarding against manky dough festering around your kit to cutting out the need for multiple machines for different-sized dough pieces.

[http://www.benier.co.uk] (Milton Keynes, Bucks) | [http://www.cater-bake.co.uk] (Knowsley, Merseyside) | [http://www.equipline.co.uk] (Uxbridge, Middlesex) | [http://www.jestic.co.uk] (Tunbridge Wells, Kent) | Pizza Plus Foodservice chris@pizzaplus.fsnet.co.uk (Preston) | [http://www.servequip.co.uk] (Croydon, Surrey)

Originally, pizza dough was cooked outdoors on hot flat stones. Not entirely practical or indeed desirable in this HACCP age we live in, but you don't have to brave the British weather to produce excellent pizzas. There are options to suit you, from counter-top to conveyor models. Here are just a small selection:

You don't want to mess with Giuseppe Mascoli's oven. The Neapolitan pizza owner prides himself on his E9,000 (£7,085), handcrafted specimen. "I had it made by an artisan in Naples," he says. "Then put on an industrial trolley and shipped over on a container. It's a very particular oven."

Passionate People, Passionate About Food' is Rotherham-based Maple Leaf Bakery's slogan. This passion, along with a huge pride about what it does and what it has achieved, were the main instigators behind the company's decision to enter last year's Baking Industry Awards and the reasons behind its Bakery Manufacturer Of The Year accolade. Sitting in marketing and innovation director Guy Hall's office, drinking tea out of an 'I love New York bagels' mug, the passion is certainly evident.

In December 2006, Mike Thurlow, miller and tenant of Letheringsett Watermill in north Norfolk, won the UKTV Local Food Hero Award. One of the judges, celebrity chef Gary Rhodes, described him as "the nation's favourite" and thousands of internet voters clearly agreed.

So you've undertaken a green audit, embarked on an energy efficiency plan and explored eco-friendly packaging. How else can you make your business more ethical? Consider looking more closely at the core of your business - at the products you sell.

A combination of the credit crunch, high raw materials price inflation and low business and consumer confidence makes this a testing time for owners looking to finance an early or mature phase of expansion in the food sector.

Bread has been with us since ancient times, but never before has the whole industry been under such scrutiny from consumers concerned with their weight and health. Ancient Britons would probably have given Sid the Slug short shrift, but nowadays, the baking industry cannot afford to turn its back on calls to lower levels of salt and saturated fat and to help people make healthier choices.

Brits are eating less salt. Average daily consumption has fallen by 0.9g to 8.6g since 2000, reports the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

You don't have to be a big-scale operation to take advantage of IT, and a number of smaller bakeries have benefited from a long-established package, tailored to craft businesses, which has recently been upgraded.

People driving SUVs are not the only ones worried about rising oil prices. Its impact is being felt throughout industry, and baking is no different. Add in spiralling costs for wheat and other raw materials, and protecting margins in our business is getting harder and harder.

H alloween is traditionally about dressing up in ridiculously unscary costumes, the implied necessity for everyone - well every child - to be out roaming the streets at night, trick or treating and getting someone else in the family to buy and carve a pumpkin. However it is also emerging as an increasingly profitable event for the bakery sector.

Like many businesses, those in the baking trade often feel that they have little spare time on their hands to dedicate to environmental issues. However, this is an area where a little investment can pay dividends in terms of improved resource efficiency and cost savings.

We have a three-year plan to double the size of our business," says an excited Délifrance MD Ian Dobbie, having just cut the ribbon on a spanking new bake-off plant in Wigston, near Leicester. Having topped the £40m turnover mark at the end of last year, this represents a major kick-on for the business, which has seen around 15-20% year-on-year growth for the past decade. Until now, the firm has been largely perceived as a frozen par-bake specialist, but this is set to change, with a renewed assault on the packaged morning goods category, armed with a new ability to fully bake-off its own products.

Roly's Bistro is a modern rarity: a restaurant that bakes its own bread and confectionery, rather than relying on mixes or pre-baked products. Now it has done something even more rare: it has set up a bakery shop and café to sell the products that were previously the reserve of the restaurant. It is even thinking of franchising the concept - or at least extending it to other outlets.

Such is the pace of change in the spy vs spy world of supermarket buying, that the greatest delight in developing new products comes in creeping up and mugging a competitor with a category first.

OK, so let me confess straight up - I am an accountant and the amount I truly know about baking can be written on a grain of baking powder. The only time I have ever baked was on a 72-foot, 50-tonne yacht in the mid-Atlantic, which was racing for Boston on a 40-degree tilt... and I can assure you that is not good for making bread evenly sliceable!

A recent announcement by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) suggests that the number of foreign workers being exploited is higher than previously thought, particularly in the food processing industry. To tackle the problem of rogue employers, the GLA launched Operation Ajax, an initiative that will see the authority carry out up to 30 raids during the next 18 months.

With many messages on the subject of our economy travelling like wildfire around the baking industry, you won't be blamed for supposing we're about to suffer the first recession this century.

The Bakers' Benevolent Society (BBS) celebrated its 150th anniversary with a family open day on Sunday 15 June at Bakers Villas in Epping.

The dairy sector has seen prices of raw ingredients rocket alongside all the other commodities, and the café and bakery retailing sector is no stranger to this. But aside from cost, what issues do bakery retailers and cafés face when it comes to the dairy products they use? Is it important to them to use locally sourced and/or organic products, and do customers care?

Over the last year, healthy breads such as whole grain have experienced the fastest growth within the bread sector. The same period has also been marked by the widespread cleaning up of ingredients labels. This all amounts to great news for the shelf-life of the people eating the breads, but not so great for the bread itself.

Last month saw the London opening of an Italian coffee chain that harbours ambitions to reassert Italy's easily overlooked status as the godfather of espresso - since its position was usurped around the globe by Starbucks and its bastard (in the nicest possible way) offspring. I know what you're thinking: "Great, that's just what the UK needs, another branded coffee chain."

Matt Scott knew he faced a battle to make flour sexy when he bought Bacheldre Watermill seven years ago. After all, producing organic and traditional flours from a 16th century Welsh water-powered mill in Powys was, literally, miles away from his former life as a postman in Gosport.

Greener packaging - it's straightforward, right? Plastics are "bad", while paper and cardboard are "good". Well actually, it's not quite that simple, and even the experts don't agree. Landfill, where most of the UK's waste ends up, is under huge pressure. Space is due to run out within the next five to 10 years, according to Defra. And with conventional plastics taking between 200 and 500 years to break down in landfill, it's obvious that we cannot keep burying it underground, then burying our heads in the sand about the environmental impact.

For some, looking for government support - whether in grants, tax incentives or simply advice and training opportunities - has something of a stigma about it. That is, until they see who else is already benefiting from this type of support.

I must respond to your News Insight item 'Crunch time for training' (27 June), to address what seems to be a lack of understanding regarding the important and entirely positive developments currently underway in bakery training in the UK.

Courgettes, also known as zucchini, are a very versatile vegetable with a delicate flavour. Courgettes were not widely eaten in Europe before the 20th century, but have been cultivated in Central America for 5,000 years and are related to watermelons, gherkins and cucumbers. They are plentiful in the summer months and anyone who has ever grown courgettes will know that they seem to turn into marrows before your eyes and are best when picked young, as they have more flavour and less water.

Tom Herbert a fifth-generation baker and director of Hobbs House Bakery, a multi award-winning craft bakery based in south Gloucestershire

The Whole Grain Stamp - a nifty little black and yellow food packaging label that has done wonders for the bowels of our American cousins - was launched recently into the UK, in a move that would have our back-page dietician Dr Allinson rolling around joyfully in his grave.

It seems fitting that Asda's Boldon Colliery got the gong for best in-store bakery at BIA07 - gongs being something of a recurring theme at Asda's in-stores. Remember the advertising campaign earlier this year, featuring Victoria Wood ringing a bell to tell customers that freshly baked bread was on-shelf - part of Asda's novel approach to promoting its scratch baking? Well that was filmed in Boldon, Asda's flagship bakery, and deemed the best in-store in the UK by the BIA judges.

W ith increasing consumer awareness about what they are eating, the current trend is the use of natural fresh ingredients. It's easier for small craft bakers who sell locally to use more fresh fruit pieces in their toppings, as many have a relatively short shelf-life and are made for immediate consumption. "The biggest trend, though, is that people want premium products and they are actually willing to pay for them," says Stuart Allan, operations and development director of Indulgence Patisserie.

Manufacturers and bakers will be able to get free advice on automating their plants from CenFRA, a newly-formed body whose vision is to to provide independent, affordable automation solutions.

Düsseldorf's giant exhibition halls swallowed up more than 179,000 visitors over the seven days of Interpack, a monster, triennial processes and packaging bash. More than 2,700 exhibitors, including packaging and processing equipment manufacturers, used the event to launch their very latest models, boasting improved efficiency and sophisticated technology. Both traditional and "eco-friendly" packaging manufacturers also used Interpack as a springboard for their launches.

With landfill tax now costing £32 a tonne and set to rise by £8/tonne every year until 2012, business is facing an inflation-busting bill for its waste.

A lot of time is spent here at the SoHo Sandwich Co working with both our chefs and numerous bread suppliers to create interesting combinations of fillings with the right bread to bring out the flavour. We need to use a perfectly balanced selection of flavours and textures to make the customers keep coming back.

Employers are obliged to provide information to, and consult with, trade union or other appropriate representatives where they propose to make 20 or more employees redundant at one establishment within 90 days or less.

The importance of investing in the future of the industry emerged as a key theme at this year's SAMB (Scottish Association of Master Bakers) Technical Sessions, which were held at the Peebles Hydro Hotel. Guest speaker Pat Smyth, who is president of the Irish Association of Master Bakers and managing director of AB Mauri company Yeast Products, stressed the need to address the industry's "low skills base", adding that "educational support is becoming an issue". He also identified a problem with retaining people in the industry.

How do we solve a problem like organics? Once the hills were alive with the sound of ringing cash tills, as the organic market continued its decade-long steady growth. But the organic idyll was recently upset by an ominous rumbling in the form of new data, which showed that the organics market suffered the first year-on-year downturn in sales this year in April (source TNS Global).

There have been, I admit, quite a few occasions when I've made a decision that didn't really work out as planned, such as the location for a shop. Then, through a stroke of good fortune, someone has come along and made me an offer for the site that gave me a good profit - and I always took the credit for being so far-sighted.

The Scottish Association of Master Bakers (SAMB) conference, from 24-27 May, saw George Stevenson, MD of of Mathiesons of Falkirk, with 32 shops and mall cafés, and a growing wholesale business, take over as new president.

Combis, the multi-purpose workhorses of the oven world, can be used to roast, steam or bake food. When used in combination, the various heating methods within each oven speed up the cooking process, maximising efficiency and saving time.

As summer is almost upon us - or at least as much of a summer as Britain normally gets - most of us like to have a barbecue in the garden when the opportunity strikes, and salad is nowhere to be seen in shops by Sunday afternoon. But does this hot weather affect the sales of hot savoury food? Do consumers, who are out shopping in a busy high street on a hot summer's day, choose to grab a pasty-on-the-go, or a sandwich?

Where do you go for the taste of authentic Parisian artisanal bread? Middlesex would not be many people's number-two destination on this front. But in Upminster, you will find a self-proclaimed sourdough "mini revolution" under way. (Any sightings of Frenchmen roaming the countryside wielding their baguettes in an aggressive manner are purely coincidental.)

Italy is renowned worldwide for its gastronomy and that gastronomy is part of our history, culture and tradition," says Davide Nardini, vice-president of the Council for the Province of Ferrara. "Here in Italy, food is an expression of our cultural heritage," adds Carlo Alberto Roncarati, president of the Chamber of Commerce. "Each area has its own history and intrinsic character. You can see that even in our bread and, if you don't protect it, you lose your identity, you lose what sets you apart."

For bakery owners, buying a new vehicle to transport perishable goods can be an expensive business, particularly when looking for specialist vehicles such as refrigerated vans. Many fledgling firms opt for used vehicles when attempting to build up a small business or start-up on a tight budget. Most will be aware of the used commercial van dealerships. But there is an alternative option that offers a wide variety of vehicles and potential to unearth a bargain - the auction.

Where the Telegraph article does fall down is in its failure to recognise that UK bakers have already mastered the art of making large-volumed, fine-structured and soft-eating wholemeal bread products; but then I doubt that there were any bakers in the audience for the talk to make this practical observation.

When eating bread, most of us probably don't think about the empty space in it, but rather whether we like its texture and flavour. Yet both of these are driven by bubbles. This is because one of the key aims when mixing is to ensure that air is trapped in the dough and, for sandwich and toast bread, we want the air to be evenly dispersed.

Bubbles could be the answer to encouraging more children to eat sandwiches made out of healthier brown bread, proclaimed The Daily Telegraph in a recent article (tinyurl.com/5oxs96). In it, the article suggested that there is a basic problem encouraging people to eat more brown bread because of its inferior texture to white bread.

Making plaques, rolls loaves, pastries and decorating cakes - all against the clock - is challenging enough in a real working environment.

== What was your route into the milling industry? ==

== Best of times ==

== John Foster - Fosters Bakery Fosters Bakery, based in Barnsley, south Yorkshire, supplies fresh and frozen products to major retailers, airlines and caterers ==

== 1 I am a small independent sandwich shop operator with limited kitchen space. I buy in mostly bake-off products, so I require a deck oven that is well-suited to baking-off baguettes and making pizzas, but it has to be simple to use. ==

The UK cakes market has enjoyed positive, though slowing, growth over the past five years, but the shape of the market is changing.

When new MD Paul May talks about an "aggressive" growth strategy for Patisserie Valerie (PV), the word jars somewhat with one's perceptions of the shops. Original owner Madame Valerie was quite happy with one store thank-you-very-much, and it took over 60 years before PV opened its second store. Since 1987, the business has been quietly nurtured by the Scalzo brothers, who took the original Old Compton St shop and added eight more over 20 years. While the one remaining Scalzo in the business, Victor, carries a frame you wouldn't mess with, this ain't the kind of aggressive retail expansion form that gets the big high street players running for mummy.

Premium cakes have enjoyed juicy growth over the last two years, but with food inflation, house price fears and financial instability, will the top-end market hit the skids? When it comes to tightening the belt, it helps if you don't eat luxurious cakes. But that's enough of the diet tips. How do you sell premium cakes when people have less money to spend?

== Island Bakery Organics ==

Only in its third year, Tesco's latest 'Enjoy the Taste of Scotland' has already become the biggest Scotland-only food and drink show in the UK and probably the world, says its initiator and Tesco's senior buyer for Scotland, Sarah Mackie.

== Tom Herbert - Hobbs House Bakery ==

A new Italian-style bakery, Il Valen-tino's, in Dublin, has been trading since early this year. Owner Owen Doorly spent 13 years in Italy, working mainly on coffee roasting, and returned home to start up this bakery.

Walking into a room full of baked goods - rolls, Viennoiserie, Granary and Hovis loaves, exquisitely decorated cakes and yes, the occasional bread which looks a bit lopsided or lacks spring - is quite a moving a experience. Especially when everything has been created by keen and competitive students.

At the annual National Association of Master Bakers conference in Blackpool members heard that the decline in membership that has taken place over recent years has been halted.

The cost of basic ingredients used in bakery has risen extraordinarily over the past year.

One exhibit stood head and shoulders above the others at BIE - literally.

Caffè Culture 2008, with its wide range of exhibitors, food demonstrations and extensive programme of seminars, is less than three weeks away. The show, taking place at London's Olympia on 21 and 22 May, features the latest products and services from international and UK-based suppliers, from bakery and café design through to kitchen equipment and training.

Larger bakers - we're talking business size not belt girths here - have long recognised the benefits of automatic roll plant. But what about the smaller guys - again, not the vertically challenged - who are thinking of improving efficiencies by automating?

No doubt fuelled by the likes of poo-obsessed TV nutritionist Gillian McKeith, healthy breads and, specifically, whole grains, have seen a revival over the last five years, with the focus being on maintaining a healthy gut. Heart health, on the other hand, has fallen somewhat off the radar. As one industry insider stated, during the course of researching this feature, "The health claims are amazing, yet the Brits seem to concentrate on bowels!"

By Mich Turner, photography by Richard Jung, 160 pages