Kluman & Balter (Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire) offers pie fillings ranging from apricot, black cherry, blackcurrant, fruits of the forest, lemon, and raspberry through to red cherry, strawberry and Bramley apple.

McDougalls (part of RHM Foodservice, Reading) has recently reduced the fat content in its High Yield Pastry and Short Crust Pastry Mixes by 22%.

IMA Food Equipment (St Albans, Hertfordshire) represents Kalmeijer of Holland which manufactures the KTM pie and tart machines.

Midlands-based Shire Foods sees major growth areas in savoury pastries and pies. It has recently launched the first of many new hand-held productss under the Pizza Pod brand name.

The consumer of today is persistently seeking homemade characteristics in their desserts, according to ingredients firm Food Design (Hornbeam Park Avenue, Harrogate).

Holland's Pies (Accrington, Lancashire), pie, pudding and savoury pastry manufacturer, is launching a range of family pies, including old favourites such as, Potato & Meat and Steak & Onion.

European Process Plant (EPP) based in Epsom, Surrey, has been installing pie lines for over 35 years.

Not surprisingly, males are the key consumer group when it comes to eating pies, according to data gathered by TNS Worldpanel on behalf of savoury pastry manufacturer Waldens.

Where do you go if you want the true taste of the south-west, to find a proper Cornish pasty made to a traditional recipe, with locally sourced ingredients, a rich handmade pastry and produced locally? Well, London obviously.

The Café Brontë brand of luxury cookies, indulgent biscuits and traditional shortbread bars was launched at London's Caffè Culture show in late May and has already secured listings with two out of three of the country's leading wholesalers. And according to the Livingston firm's managing director Alan Hardie: "We expect all three to have the brand by the end of the year."

Belfast-based Neill's Flour has become the first mill in Northern Ireland to receive the Investor in People Standard, joining over 38,000 organisations in the UK that have committed to setting a level of good practice for improving business performance through their people.

While the quality of the UK wheat harvest in 2006 has been generally good, events elsewhere in the world have led to a steep increase in wheat prices, especially during September and early October. The upshot is that UK bread wheat prices now stand some 40% higher than a year ago and this market strength seems likely to persist throughout this season.

The cult of youth sometimes gets out of hand. Many people seem to think that, once you get up to or past 70, you are ready to be put down.

From Stuart Matthews,

In the last month the three biggest retail bakers in the UK - Three Cooks, Lyndale Foods and Greggs - have all hit the headlines. Most recently, Three Cooks has crashed into administration, but before that Greggs complained of disappointing trading. Lyndale has also admitted a major strategic review is under way.

At last, there are signs on the horizon of a few brave bakers who have noticed things are hotting up on the high street! Apart from the giants, such as Greggs and Subway, making their presence felt, retail bakers face the added challenge of the in-store concessions, bake-off and any number of coffee-based offers. But many have their blinkers on, focusing just on their products while neglecting the bigger picture.

The 2006 International Conference of Dried Grape Producing Countries was held in Monterey, California last month. Representatives from countries, including the USA, Turkey, Greece, Chile, South Africa and Australia, swapped information on harvests, production and marketing at the event.

A forum to be held in Warsaw next week will highlight Poland's potential to be a manufacturing base for UK food firms.

The successful integration of two mills and strong sales of speciality flours have helped Cumbria-based miller Carr's notch up healthy sales and profit increases.

After we broke the news last week of another impending rise in the price of flour many of you have remarked that both British and Canadian wheat harvests were very good, therefore it is hard to believe that other factors would have such an adverse effect on prices.

Some 150 participants gained an insight into opportunities to optimise consumer health at an international conference hosted in Copenhagen last month by ingredients supplier Danisco.

I feel less than sunny at the news of the launch this week in Scotland of the Food Standards Agency's (FSA's) 'scores on the doors' pilots.

Small businesses should ditch the landlord and buy their freehold if they want to save money, according to property website http://www.publicangel.com.

Inter Link has appointed former group finance director Chris Thompson as chief executive.

I like convenient food that is simple, plain and easy to eat, without being too messy.

Dunkan the gingerbread man has been launched to help people looking for careers in food and drink manufacturing get information on jobs and training.

Sandwich chain Subway is planning to add new shapes and styles to its bread range "bringing some innovation to the customer".

Ginsters has opened a £3.5m extension to its savouries factory in Cornwall with a promise to boost its purchase of local produce.

Sandwich supplier FooGo has revealed plans for a chain of 40 eat-in sandwich bars.

The theatre of baking is at the heart of the Amano café concept, which is to be rolled out across London and ultimately nationwide.

n Consumer confidence in the internet means that 65% of shoppers want to buy their Christmas gifts online this year. A report by Visa reveals that 81% of Britons believe shopping online saves time; 70% think it saves money.

Northern Foods rejected City suggestions that it would fail to get the £200m it was seeking for the pastry, cakes, speciality bread and flour milling businesses.

These tasty orange biscuits come from a collection of 215 recipes compiled by a professional baker, Fredrick Vine, in his book Biscuits for Bakers: Easy to Make and Profitable to Sell, which was published in 1896. He recommended selling these biscuits at 1 shilling a pound. In today's terms that's about £8 for a kilo or £3.90 a pound.

RTS Flexible Systems (Irlam, Manchester) a provider of integrated robotic and automation systems for the food industry, has developed a solution for picking and packing food products into variety packs.

Kitchen Range Foods (Peterborough) is extending its range of Cadbury chocolate donuts with the launch of an individually wrapped Cadbury Milk Chocolate donut - a single ring donut covered in smooth Cadbury milk chocolate and sprinkled with chunky chocolate pieces.

Macphie is helping bakers during the festive season with a range of convenient, ready-to-use desserts and sweet sauces. The desserts include Macphie Crème Caramel, Macphie Panna Cotta and Macphie Crème Brûlée. The desserts are tolerant to alcohol making them suitable for Christmas products.

Burton's Foods (Blackpool, Lancashire), makers of Cadbury's biscuits under licence, has launched a Cadbury "Signature" collection, comprising 200g packs of Bournville Shortcake Rounds, Milk Chocolate shortbread and Milk Chocolate Orange cookies (RSP £1.99).

The new compact Herma 400 Slim Line label applicator allows new and existing rotary machines to be easily converted to run self-adhesive labels.

British Sugar has launched TopWrap icing sugar, part of the Celebration range, designed for use on products such as iced buns, which are often wrapped in film before sale.

Cuisine de France (Stone, Staffordshire) says it has something for everyone this Christmas, from traditional festive treats to indulgent winter goodies.

California Raisins (Barnes, London) is launching an Organic Food Bar range. The bars are non-dairy kosher and three are vegan-certified. All are vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, peanut-free, soy-free and GMO-free, with no preservatives, additives, salt, coatings or refined sugar. The RRP is £1.99.

Dawn Foods' Adore brand offers four lines of individually wrapped premium muffins, brownies, indulgent cakes and American cookies, available in a variety of flavours.

Elisabeth the Chef reports significant growth in packaged cakes over the last year, with sales growth topping the 20% mark. The company states that almost all that growth stems from traditional product areas - choux buns, meringue-based products, doughnuts, éclairs, custards and sponges.

Health and indulgence are two buzzwords that have peppered many a bakery marketing director's PowerPoint presentation over the past year. But while the indulgent cakes sector continues to show great gains, healthy cake sales are somewhat stagnant.

When bagel producer Maple Leaf Bakeries wanted a weighing and traceability system for its expanded plant near Rotherham, it chose the Trac-IT MES system from Marco Weighing.

This year sees the inaugural World Scotch Pie Week, organised by The Scotch Pie Club from Saturday 25 November to Saturday 2 December and sponsored by ADM Milling.

Unifine Food & Bake Ingredients' Centre of Excellence in Roosendaal, Holland, claims to be able to create any flavour, bringing 150 years of experience to the table. Well-trained panel members, selected for their sense of taste and smell, are crucial to the flavours business. The sensory labs, in which they operate, looks like a scene from a science fiction film, as the experts sniff away in their small, white, square booths. They have their own unique 'flavour language', developed so that they can communicate smells and tastes objectively, which includes words such as metallic, violet, musky, woody, vanillic and even catty!

Bakery buyers may be sobbing in the aisles - and one or two tertiary bakery suppliers, no doubt - as the one-size-fits-all approach to filling the supermarket bakery concessions across the land is ditched, with the focus shifted onto locally sourced products, premium, indulgent products and organics.

I 'm a mature student in my second year at Castle College in Sheffield, currently sitting an NVQ Level Two Bakery, Patisserie and Cake Decorating, having gained Level One last year.

Supplier Tate & Lyle has posted strong results, thanks to its profitable value-added food and industrial ingredients sectors.

Information from 64,000 wheat samples and 22,000 barley samples has been received and analysed by HGCA for its final Cereals Quality Survey.

Associated British Foods said its Allied Bakeries division had seen "a very disappointing year", as it posted preliminary results for the year ended 16 September this week.

Northern Foods has signed a multi-union National Learning Agreement.

Flour prices seem set to rise - again! A formal announcement is due in the next few weeks but British Baker has gained advance knowledge that another price increase is imminent (pg 4).

It has been a busy 12 months since the industry announced its plans to reduce salt in bread and we are already making significant strides in meeting our targets.

Bakeries and sandwich shops are enticing fast food fans away from Burger King in the UK.

A fire that destroyed part of United Central Bakeries' (UCB) West Lothian factory last week is believed to have started in a naan oven.

"Provenance and traceability are really important at the moment. Consumers are becoming more interested in the story behind their food and where it actually comes from.

Baker Warburtons has revealed it will open another bakery in the south in the next two years, as nationwide expansion continues.

Continental pastries and speciality bread producer Bakehouse restructured last month, with former sales director Tony Brown promoted to chief operating officer.

Greggs blamed unseasonably mild and wet weather for particularly disappointing trading in the four weeks to 7 October.

Management of retail bakery Three Cooks said they remain locked in rescue talks with administators after the chain collapsed last week.

n Sales of New York Bagel Company-branded bagels have increased 30% in the last few weeks following a TV advertising campaign. Owner, Maple Leaf Bakery UK, said sales were flying since the adverts first aired on 6 October.

The price of flour is set to rise by another £25 a tonne before Christmas, as increased costs continue to hit the milling sector.

Weight Watchers has extended its popular reduced-fat cakes range with the launch of Almond Cake Slices, made from a combination of almond sponge, pastry, jam and almonds.

n Bakery company Finsbury Food Group is assessing damage after an overnight fire at its United Central Bakeries site near Edinburgh. It said recovery plans were being implemented and alternative production facilities sourced where necessary.