A few years ago, while digging up the M1, workmen dozily pierced the pipeline taking water to Coca-Cola's biggest factory in Wakefield, Yorkshire.

John Montague (1718-1792), the fourth Earl of Sandwich, often gets the credit for inventing the sandwich.

Back in 2005, McCambridge's chairman, Michael McCambridge, was quoted in the Irish Times as saying: "McCambridge is linked almost exclusively with brown bread and we want to keep it that way." Two years later, it acquired the second-biggest cake manufacturer in the UK, in the shape of Inter Link Foods. But they'd already picked up three UK businesses by that point, en route to the 10 in total that they've accrued in the UK and Ireland since 1999.

With summer just around the corner, outdoor parties are promising to be in full swing - and you don't need to be an events organiser to cash in.

With a trained chef as a mother to teach her cookery from an early age and a father who worked for Lloyds Bank providing commercial nous, it's perhaps not surprising that Gemma Parker has ended up running an increasingly successful cake-making business in Norfolk.

One small step for bakers (or a few steps upstairs to the conference rooms at Baking Industry Exhibition), one giant leap for baking kind. What last year appeared a challenge at one time as unlikely as putting a man on the moon - getting the baking industry to speak with once voice - last week came a significant stride nearer.

What service do you sell?

How did your career progress before joining Costa Coffee?

Bakers and confectioners are advised to get their skates on if they want to take part in this year's Baking Industry Awards, as the deadline, Friday 16 May, is fast approaching. The Awards have a category to suit everyone, so there's no excuse not to have a go.

Piping bags that pipe themselves

Separated by just a couple of hours on the Eurostar, the French and UK bakery scenes might as well be worlds apart. The first hint of this comes when you ask a French baker about the local baking industry. They immediately recoil at the mere mention of the word "industry". In their eyes, it's seen as the antithesis of craft - if not another name for Beelzebub.

Enjoyment, indulgence and the growth of the café culture are the main ingredients of the recipe for muffins' booming success. One measure of this is the decision by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) last month to add them to the basket of goods it uses to determine the retail price index.

When somebody asks you, 'Do you like the taste of hospital food?', it's usually because you've spilt somebody's pint in a packed Wetherspoon's. Last month, British Baker had to ponder this question when we attended a taste test of baked goods, supplied into Southampton University Hospital. And it wasn't without a similar sense of Friday night trepidation. This was a gluten-free taste test.

What's a company to do when it's wrapped up a quarter of the UK's manufactured sandwich trade in over a quarter of a decade? Why, take over the US market too, obviously. Greencore's declared - and frankly, long-awaited - ambition to get involved in convenience foods in the US, a country with untapped potential for large-scale chilled foods manufacture, is finally nearing fruition. A small team has been busying itself with this project for the past year and a decision is due in the "relatively near future," says chief operating officer Tony Hynes.

So what's new?

When your customers are rushing to catch the 06.59 from Reading to Paddington, there is no time to get your product offering wrong. That's why, even after 15 years of running coffee kiosks at major UK stations and airports, AMT Coffee regards quick service and using exceptional ingredients, such as 100% Fairtrade coffee and organic milk, as key. It also holds customer loyalty very dear, and even today, despite around 80% of customers repeat purchasing up to five times a week, the managing director reads every single customer comment.

Welcome to the new-look British Baker, incorporating Bake & Take magazine! We are bigger, brighter and there are other major developments too.

8am

Husband and wife partnership Tricia and Paul Barker run a very individual bakery and café called Cinnamon Square, in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. What makes it unusual is that this is Britain's first 'theatre of baking', where customers can watch the bakers make cakes and pastries and quiz them about how they do it. This area is known as the Makery. Children's parties can be held here and Paul Barker also runs evening courses in bread and cake-making.

Ensure you have a varied and diverse range of soft drinks available.

There was a time when the only soft drinks you could buy in a baker's were cans of Coca-Cola and lemonade. But there has been a revolution in the soft drinks available from manufacturers and in the public appetite for new and different types of drink. Coca-Cola and other carbonated drinks are still available, and still popular, but these days they are likely to be sold from a free chiller supplied by the manufacturer.

Visiting Bells of Lazonby, near the heart of the Lake District, can be a confusing experience. On the one hand, you have miles and miles of quintessential country lanes, punctuated by centuries-old hedgerows and traditional stone cottages. On the other, lying in a lane just off the village high street, you have one of Britain's most forward-thinking bakeries - one that has national distribution, was the winner of Sainsbury's Bakery Supplier of the Year and considered corporate social responsibility (CSR) a part of its very ethos long before most us had even got our heads round the slogan.

The search is on once more to find the baking industry's high fliers and success stories, with the official launch of the Baking Industry Awards 2008. The awards, now in their 21st 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.

Alistair Darling revealed his plans for the UK economy in his first ever budget this week, but how will the baking industry be affected? See 21 March British Baker

Paris-Nord Villepinte will play host to this year's Europain & Intersuc exhibition, which welcomes confectionery and bakery professionals from around the world.

The equipment bakers use for applying spray coatings and glazes ranges from basic hand-held spray bottles to highly sophisticated automated systems. Spray automation has huge potential for raising production efficiency, reducing wastage of labour and materials and improving product consistency. But do costs rule it out for all except the biggest firms in the industry? Many smaller and medium-sized bakeries may think so and baulk at the prospective costs of automating, or even mechanising, their spray operations.

The coffee shop culture is not a new concept in the Lake District National Park, but recently, the trend has been reaching out to those in search of more than just the afternoon treat of tea and scones. Forward-thinking bakery owners Phil and Ruth Eastwood, a husband-and-wife team, say they will soon be accommodating 'Stitch 'n Bitch nights', in a newly opened café area next to their Oak Street Bakery in Windermere.

Disgruntled with the humdrum of the busy city life, Barry Hawthorne moved to the Isle of Skye from Cape Town. Captivated by the moody Scottish countryside, it's here that he set up his pet project - a bakery called The Isle of Skye Baking Company.

Angela Pullin's arrival into her parents' business has brought a renewed vigour, plus a slice of not inconsiderable marketing and PR nous. In four short years, she has helped pull Pullins beyond its traditional markets, culminating in canny new branding and packaging last year. What's more, she says, this modernising bakery has since set its sights on breaking out of its south-west stronghold by taking on a more diverse client base.

Are you a senior executive or director? Are you also one of an increasing number of people who, internally, feel under pressure to perform at levels that are not sustainable, but without which, your future is insecure? The pressure comes from fearing what might happen if you do not perform to the requested level.

Being with it and modern is very difficult these days. There are those who tell me it is old-fashioned to wear a tie and jacket on even semi- formal occasions.

Despite being a continually evolving industry, that has survived and adapted to modern technologies and ever-changing consumer tastes, bakery is often considered the poor relation to cooking.

More than 30 new exhibitors have signed up for the Baking Industry Exhibition (BIE), joining many big-name regular exhibitors.

There's a certain amount of faith required when following the recipes in Richard Bertinet's new book Crust. The French baker, who runs a bakery and cookery school in Bath, is a firm believer in using a high percentage of water in his bread recipes, which he argues makes for light and airy loaves. Unfortunately, it also makes for a very sticky dough - so sticky in fact that there may be times when you think you have made a mistake in following the recipe.

Take a passion for food, stir in a desire for indulgent treats to fit a vegan lifestyle and top it off with a concern to cater for those affected by food allergies and you have the recipe for the success of London-based Heavenly Cakes.

We are living in an age when consumers want to be associated with outer beauty and inner vitality, and just like the guests on the Channel 4 TV show 10 Years Younger, Waterfields bakery has been undergoing a dramatic facelift.

How and when did you become involved in the baking industry?

There is a fine line between brilliant innovation and the utterly bizarre. This was evident from the Hotelympia 2008 exhibition, which showcased a vast range of products, including aluminium teabags and juice made from flowers.

Having spent a lifetime in the trade - many of those years in training - we seem to have endlessly thrown the skills ball around, with few willing to take on the challenge. So what are these skills: are they craft, process, or apprenticeship and where are they coming from, together with the supporting knowledge and understanding?

Honeyrose Bakery, the organic cake baker based in Park Royal, London, is significantly stepping up its operations to meet the growing market for organic hand-baked cakes. The firm, founded in 2000, has outgrown its current bakery, having "knocked through into neighbours until we've run out of neighbours", as Adrian Apodaca, Honeyrose's marketing director, puts it.

Momentum is gathering around the National Skills Academy Training Centre for Bakery. Whether this ends up based at Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association (CCFRA), as mooted, or emerges as a handful of satellite colleges, scattered across a wider geographic reach, is still up for debate. Fosters Bakery, for one, would like to see a national skills centre set up in Barnsley. This is not surprising - Fosters is based in Barnsley.

T he Competition Commission's (CC's) two-year-long investigation into the grocery market inched towards a final conclusion last week, with the publication of its long-awaited final remedies statement. On the surface, bakery suppliers should be happier with the recommendations than high street bakers, who face the daunting prospect of even more supermarkets springing up around them.

Mirroring developments in the US, cupcakes are attaining a cult status in the UK with an explosion of flavours, colours and frostings. Consumers, particularly baby boomers and generation X-ers, tend to be sentimental about foods that evoke childhood memories. For the younger generation, the concept of retro eating brings a sense of fun.

A bit of a baking industry legend to say the least, Ernst Bachmann has been nominated as a finalist at the Baking Industry Awards no fewer than 15 times, and last year was the fifth time he walked away with a gong. Readers of BB will also know him for his series of recipe Masterclasses in these pages - not that this would have biased the independent judges, who praised his exceptional products in the face of tough competition.

Most of us would like to make a small difference to the planet or leave the world a little bit better off than we found it.

Previously the preserve of teas and coffees, more and more Fairtrade badges have been popping up on bakery products in recent months. Fairtrade is an organisation that helps to improve trading terms and conditions for producers of, among other products, coffee and chocolate from developing countries. But why should a baker use Fairtrade ingredients, how hard is it to get accredited and what are the hurdles involved?

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) revealed on Wednesday, 16 January, its new voluntary guidelines to warn consumers about possible allergens in food from food retail outlets, such as bakeries, cafés and restaurants, as well as food that is not prepacked. Two weeks later, on Wednesday, 30 January, the EU Commission went even further and announced an intention to introduce new legislation to make this mandatory.

T here has never been a better time for the cereals industry to cement partnerships across the supply chain, which will strengthen it going forward and increase profitability for all.

What will be the biggest issue your business faces in 2008?

With consumers increasingly opting for ethical products, Costa Coffee has set up its own charity, the Costa Foundation. The company says its aim is to put something back into coffee-growing communities from which it sources its coffee beans. It is currently working in Colombia, Ethiopia and Uganda.

The Big Apple didn't know what had hit it last year, when 50 of Britain's best craft bakers piled off a plane and pounded the sidewalks in a mission to visit the city's finest bakers and retailers.

On visiting Tesco's inconspicuous HQ in Cheshunt, surrounded as it is by Hertfordshire suburban semis, the initial impression is that it's a pretty understated setting for the brain-room of the retailer that accounts for one in every eight pounds that leaves our wallets.

Much is made of 'greenwashing' - the slightly sneery term levelled at businesses accused of hooking on to environmental schemes and painting themselves as tree- huggers. But for once, companies are being asked to take the term more literally and greenwash more. To do this, they need to be washing less.

With constant media attention fixated on spreading the message of a looming recession and crashing stock markets, both in the US and UK, many bakers may be wondering, "How does this affect my business?"

Have you ever wondered why we pay taxes for an Army, Navy and Air Force? No one is going to invade us. If they did, they could never afford to live here and buy a house. Plus, what would be the point in invading us, as most of their friends and family already live here?

A surgeon friend once said to me: "Being an anaesthetist is hours of boredom, with the odd moment of dread panic!" As you well know, dear baker, our job is the very opposite: "hours of dread panic, with the odd moment of boredom!"

As demand for organic goods continues to rise across everything from cosmetics to beer, the category has moved firmly from the trendy into the mainstream arena. While bread has not been one of the strongest organic categories, new research shows that bakers can follow the lead of fresh produce and dairy products. The signals are that a general move to 'premium' within the bread sector has opened the way for greater expansion of this category.

Sam's Cookies, a well-respected bakery firm in Bray, Co Wicklow, just south of Dublin, which has been trading since 1992, is about to face the challenges of exporting for the first time.

Late last year we featured an article from retail expert MPC, saying that the UK must learn lessons from France if it wants to revive bakery retailing on the high street (BB, Nov 30, pg 14). So what do we find on the streets of Lille? The Covent Garden Expresso Bar and Notting Hill Coffee.

A bit like the Eurovision Song contest, Europe has always taken the Bakery World Cup slightly more seriously than we Brits have done. While our cousins on the mainland Continent take the contest to heart, with national heats and everything, Royaume-Uni has consistently scored 'nul points'.

The Celebration Cake Maker of the Year certificate and picture of Terry Tang with Joanna Lumley, which was taken on the night of the Baking Industry Awards 2007, proudly hangs on the wall of the bakery shop. It is placed on the right-hand side of a nine-foot wedding cake, decorated with over 6,000 crystals.

It is no secret that, similar to other areas within the food industry, the bakery sector is fuelled by consumers looking for new product and packaging choices.

In the news last week came reports that the government will be reintroducing home economics. Fifteen years ago they didn't want to know and now all the teachers have dropped out. It's like shooting an athlete in the foot before they begin a race.

"If we had to put one cake forward to the devil, I think the brownies would save our lives," says Nigel Green, co-owner of the ironically named Heavenly Cakes - presumably the world's first Satanist bakery.

Warings celebrated its 75th birthday at the tail end of 2007. And this Reading-based bakery went one better than a 75-candle cake - it treated itself to a birthday gift by splashing out nearly £75k on overhauling one of its five shops.

Much has been written and spoken about a crisis in bakery education as witnessed by the decline in the number of colleges offering courses in baking. This is linked to a shortage of skilled bakers and often doomsday predictions about the future of our industry.

British bread prices have risen by between 15 to 20% in the past year as commo-dity and fuel costs bite, but a loaf of bread is still cheaper here than in most of the rest of the world.

I am at last eligible for a government grant. After all, if illegal immigrants are being given a free flight home and £4,000 to start up a business, I think I must be eligible, as I will explain. And I do not intend leaving the country, so I will not even cost the government the airfare.

The all-new Baking Industry Exhibition is just three months away. Following massive investment in visitor attractions, the show will take over from Food & Bake and build on past events to make this the best UK bakery trade show ever!

Since winning a Baking Industry Award in September last year, you'd expect potential new customers to be making a beeline for Kent-based Monty's Bakehouse, banging on the bakery's doors. Except there is no Bakehouse as such; the firm outsources its manufacturing to a third party. Anyone setting their Sat Nav for the bakery would likely find themselves in Cornwall.

What have fishermen got that bakers don't - apart from whiffy hands and a taste for horrible mints? A national centre for skills, that's what. Meanwhile baking, possibly the oldest profession (behind the illegal one that also involves fishnets), has had to put up with businesses, skills providers and government all pulling in different directions.

In December 2007, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) concluded that mandatory restrictions on trans fats should not be imposed.

Michele Young

In 2007 the baking industry saw a tumultuous year of unprecedented across-the-board ingredients price rises in everything from flour to eggs, the emergence of carbon labelling and the rapid rise of the Polish bread market. So what's in store for this year? One thing that ain't gonna happen is a ban on thick sliced bread (BB, 7 Dec, pg 6)...or will it? Here are the runners and riders for 2008.

Bakery products must taste fantastic and be of great quality. That, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Sainsbury's bakery buyer Sarah Mackenzie's advice to potential bakery suppliers.

The year 2007 will be remembered as one of extraordinary change on the high street, as 'deskilled' bakery formats such as Subway and Costa Coffee stormed the UK, trading in the same territory as the modern baker's shop.

There are plenty of bakers in my home town of Bridport in Dorset, all well-established and apparently holding their own, although their turnover has been affected for the worse by the edge-of-town supermarket.

If you indulge in 'income-shifting', such as between husbands and wives in business, it seems the taxman will take an increased interest in your affairs from April 2008 - and may well shift a further tax bill your way.

How does one retire gracefully? This is a problem that all of us have either met or, I sincerely hope, will meet. Remember, you young ones, the time will come when you will be old. So please give those of us approaching old age plenty of respect.

But for the intervention of one of its customers, Stuart's of Buckhaven would probably have been making a note in the diary to celebrate its 150th anniversary some time in the year 2020. In the event, the company has been marking this milestone in 2007.

January

Just over a year after a major fire at its Bathgate facility at the end of October last year, Scottish firm United Central Bakeries (UCB) has ambitious plans.

Monday

Last month's preliminary Competition Commission (CC) report into the supply of groceries in the UK contained serious flaws and omissions, which reflect an ignorance of a range of hidden elements affecting trading in town and city centres.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is currently conducting a public consultation on new guidance on food-labelling terms, such as 'fresh', 'pure', 'premium' and 'quality'. But many of the proposed guidelines are too vague to clarify any ambiguities.

Grasmere Gingerbread is made using a 150-year-old secret recipe so secret, that it is locked away in the National Westminster Bank in nearby Ambleside. "My husband and father know it and that's it. I don't even know it," says Joanne Wilson of Sarah Nelson's Grasmere Gingerbread. "My son who is four said, 'Don't tell me the recipe, daddy, otherwise someone will kidnap me.'

Millers will repeatedly tell you: "There's no such thing as poor quality wheat - there are just different specifications of wheat." Bakers, on the other hand, have been heard in recent months to exclaim, "This flour is rubbish!" (The expletives have been substituted to avoid upsetting our more sensitive readers.)

Q How did you come to be teaching bakery?