== Accidental Bread Thieves of the Year ==

Planning ahead

Dave Simmons

Robert Winters, co-owner, Tapa Bakehouse & Coffeehouse, Glasgow

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.

by bakery consultant Wayne Caddy

Passion Fruit or Passiflora edulis is native to South America but is commercially grown in South Africa, California, Florida and Kenya, among other places. The fruits are round to oval and dark purple or yellow when mature. The interior is filled with many seeds coated in an intensely scented juice.

Bread - A Slice Of History

Umer Ashraf is owner of Glasgow-based iCafé. He has three shops and plans to expand

== January ==

Landmark Wholesale has launched a new 500ml orange juice drink under its Lifestyle own brand. The juice, packaged in a PET bottle has been introduced in response to demand for healthier drink options. It is packed in a single-serve re-sealable pack and contains no added sugar or preservatives. Jon Burton, senior trading controller for Landmark Wholesale, said: "We have worked closely with our own-brand supplier to produce our own-label fresh orange juice."

Coca-Cola Great Britain has added Abbey Well to its portfolio, with the acquisition of Waters & Robson Holdings.

Independent supplier of hot and cold beverages Aimia Foods has launched a new range of Outspan juice drinks. The drinks come in 330ml PET bottles in apple and orange flavours and are the first in a series of launches in the Outspan range. They contain no artificial colours, preservatives, flavourings or sweeteners.

Britvic's full-year results reveal continued growth in the soft drinks market, with overall group revenue up 29.3% to £926.5m (£716.3m - 2006/07), despite the UK soft drinks market falling by 0.8% in volume over the period.

BakeMark UK is introducing another licensed cookie to its range with Nestlé. The Quality Street Matchmakers Cool Mint Cookie has an American-style soft bake texture and will join the likes of Nestlé Toffee Crisp Cookies, Nestlé Rolo Cookies and Nestlé Milkybar Mini Cookies.

Ginsters has launched three new festive lines to capitalise on consumer demand for party food and traditional flavours. A new 12-pack of Mini Festive Rolls in Pork and Cranberry and a standard Mini Sausage Roll 12-pack are offered. Ginsters has also brought in a limited-edition Christmas Sandwich, available in seasonal packaging, with a turkey, bacon and cranberry filling. "We're introducing flavours that consu-mers really associate with this time of year," said Andy Valentine, head of brand marketing for Ginsters.

Warburtons is relaunching its Traditional Breakfast Bakery Occasions range, ready for the New Year. Various products such as its Crumpets, Pancakes and Potato Cakes will be rolled out with new packaging this month. The company has aimed for a more contemporary packaging design.

Pie and pastry maker Chunk of Devon now uses an automated Smart pastry rolling sheeter from Eurobake. Achieving the right balance of meat, vegetables, gravies and pastry is important to the West Country-based company, as is a machine that could give it the right pastry consistency.

The Melitta C5 is a fully automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine, and is capable of producing five espresso-based coffees. It can be supplied in a variety of sizes and the machine has different options available for providing hot water and steam and either an integrated or external milk chilling and foaming unit.

The Rademaker Crusto bread line has been specially developed for large craft and industrial breadmakers to create artisan breads.

by Paula Tallon, a partner of BDO Stoy Hayward, chartered accountant

Coconut: There is little to no shortage of coconut worldwide. Demand has reduced at the higher levels so we are quite confident that, currency permitting, we should see prices ease into 2009.

Bakery supplier Aryzta has seen its revenue increase across all its divisions, with overall group revenue up a total of 31.8%, according to the company's first-quarter interim management statement.

CSM has officially opened its Innovation Center in Merksem, Belgium, which will focus on the latest developments in bakery margarines. It follows the opening last month of the company's Innovation Center for frozen and bakery products at BakeMark's site in Bromborough, Wirral, and is the third of four European centres to officially open.

Morrisons' bakery department helped the retailer achieve strong third-quarter figures, announced at the beginning of December, which saw total like-for-like sales rise 8.1%.

The patchy quality of this year's UK wheat harvest will force British millers to con- tinue importing higher-than- usual amounts of bread-making wheat.

== Dunkin' into China ==

== Award for Fosters ==

Thousands of people have pledged their support to Sustain's Real Bread Campaign, which promotes bread that is made without additives and has been fermented for at least four hours.

The baking industry could benefit from new government plans to make over £10m of funding available to businesses, with the launch of a trial to develop Apprenticeship Expan-sion Programmes.

Waterfields has bought Pimblett's 10 shops in the St Helens' area of Merseyside out of administration, after the craft bakery chain went out of business at the beginning of the month.

== Sayers rebrand ==

The UK franchise operator for international eat-in bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien (LPQ) is planning to open four new London sites over the next few months, two of them before March.

There are plenty of opportunities to grow Fairtrade in the bakery sector, according to Harriet Lamb, director, Fairtrade Foundation.

More than a third of Quiznos' sandwich shops in the UK have closed in the past year, due to the current financial crisis, leaving the company a long way short of its ambitious plan to open 200 franchise stores.

British bakers and manufactu-rers have largely been unaffected by the Irish pork contamination issue, but a number of pork products have been recalled as a precautionary measure.

The steering group of the National Skills Academy (NSA) for Bakery has achieved its first six-month target, said Jonathan Cooper, business development manager of the NSA.

Don't forget to watch the latest Wallace & Gromit film, A Matter of Loaf And Deaf, on BBC1 at 8.30pm on Christmas Day. The 30-minute programme, produced by Aardman Animations, sees the pair running their own bakery - Top Bun - but problems start when a murderous Cereal Killer starts targeting local bakers.

== Roast on a roll ==

Greggs chief executive Ken McMeikan said his top priority is to "simplify the business" to better prepare it for expansion. The comment follows his initial review of the business since he took over in August.

The importance of reducing packaging waste was highlighted by a companies including Tesco and Asda, at the Baking Industry Summit, on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), held on 27 November.

Megans Bakery in Hirwaun, South Wales is seeking to appoint an administrator, director Steve Fogo has told British Baker.