Costello recently enjoyed a course at the House of Bread in Asten, Austria, after winning the Piero Scacco award (arranged by the Worshipful Company of Bakers).

Manufacturers are invited to submit health claims about their products so they can be considered for inclusion in new European laws.

Greggs' Bakers Oven division has announced the results of its annual in-house bakery competition.

Carrs Flour Mills is celebrating 175 years in the business by opening a £500,000 brown flour blending plant.

Nostalgic consumers are driving a revival in the home baking sector, according to a new report from market research company Mintel.

Halloween has become a short but often lucrative sales opportunity in the UK, bakers have reported.

There will soon be significant consolidation in the bakery sector, the chairman of the UK's third largest retail bakery chain has predicted.

RHM-owned British Bakeries is nearing the end of a two-week review of production at its Newcastle bakery, which produces Hovis and Mother's Pride bread.

This year's Farmhouse Breakfast Week campaign from the Home Grown Cereals Authority features a competition to find the 'nation's tastiest baker of regional breads'.

Bakery entrepreneur and British Baker columnist Tony Phillips has branched out into confectionery with a chocolate shop in his home town of Cirencester.

n Shopping centre café operator BB's Coffee and Muffins has launched a Christmas menu including Cranberry & White Chocolate Muffins, and Christmas Crumble, which is a muffin mixed with mincemeat. There is also a Ginger Reindeer Biscuit and a Cranberry Flapjack. Christmas baguette fillings include: turkey breast, salad & cranberry; Brie, lettuce and cranberry; and sage and onion stuffing with salad.

Donut retailer Krispy Kreme has yet to deliver on a promise to open a raft of stores in the Midlands as it continues to expand in the UK.

n Workers of Dorset Bakery of Hybris Business Park, Crossways, spent three days campaigning against a car-spraying workshop they claim is contaminating products and making them ill. Staff stopped working when they suspected fumes from the neighbouring Colortec workshop were seeping through and into the bakery's products. The employees demonstrated in South Street, Dorchester, to highlight their concerns.

Bread hit the headlines again this week when the Daily Mail published an article linking consumption of white bread with an increased risk of kidney cancer.

A local council would cut its right hand off to attract inward investment from a company that employed as many people as Brace's Bakery - nearly 400, with a successful track record. It would put in all the roads and services necessary, especially if the company had a big international name. Then, probably, like many before it, it would move away once the grants ran out.

International food company IAWS Group has signed an agreement to acquire Otis Spunkmeyer Holdings, a leading US speciality baked goods business, from its management team and the private equity firm Code Hennessy & Simmons.

Catering giant Compass is to pay £40m to settle two lawsuits alleging it obtained United Nations foodservice contracts through rigged bids and fraud.

Fuerst Day Lawson (FDL), supplier of seeds and natural ingredients to the baking industry, can now supply sesame seeds processed in India.

Corporate affairs director John Gillespie is retiring from food ingredients manufacturer Macphie after 37 years.

Entries received so far for the 2006 World Scotch Pie Championship suggest the event could be a record breaker, beating the 350 entries received last year.

Duchy Originals has doubled production at its bakery since opening the plant in June.

Dairy co-op Milk Marque has bought bakery supplier Community Foods, which supplies ingredients such as seeds and is one of the leading companies in the organic and health food sector.

Over 300 entries competed in the 2006 Western Bakery Championships, held earlier this month at BAKO Western's new facility in Cullompton, Devon.

On Sunday 8 October, Ireland won gold in the International Baker and Confectioners Competition at the IBA Exhibition, Munich, Germany.

Allied Bakeries has almost ruled out sabotage on its production line after glass and needles were found in Kingsmill loaves.

Asda painted a "pretty rosy picture" of its bakery department reporting 6.5% year-on-year value growth and 3% volume growth at the British Society of Baking's Autumn Conference this week.

Staff at the Little Venice Cake Company last week shared their cake-decorating expertise with TV stars Ant and Dec to help them face a live studio challenge.