Theo de Pencier

Baking industry showtime in Italy this year runs from May 5-9. In Milan, AB tech expo and AB tech expo pizza - the AB stands for Arte Bianco or white art - will take place in two halls of the ultra-modern new exhibition centre in Milan, called Rho.

Long before Peter Kay uttered the immortal line in Phoenix Nights, "Garlic bread - it's the future, I've tasted it!" a Northern Irish bakery was having the very same flashbulb epiphany.

In the last couple of years, wraps have really taken off, and you only need to look in the food sections of high street shops or garages to see how popular they're proving with consumers as a convenient, tasty snack. From busy mums preparing school lunchboxes to late night kebab fans, following an evening in the pub, it seems the tortilla wrap is fast becoming the new sandwich.

Allied Bakeries claims its 16-year-old Kingsmill brand is already one of the best-known brands in the UK, but now management feel it is time to "take it on to the next level".

Very few people - especially those in the baking industry - can have failed to have heard about the EU Protected Food Name Scheme (EUPFN) in recent months. High-profile cases, such as the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association vs Northern Foods, have ensured the idea of protec-ting Britain's food heritage is one of 2007's industry hot topics.

February's round-up of new products, from Productscan, throws up some novel ideas in the international coffee and beverages market. Productscan is an international on-line market intelligence service, published by New York-based Datamonitor.

Tate & Lyle, the cereal sweete-ners and starches company, has announced the sale of its Canadian sugar refining business, Redpath, to American Sugar Refining, for a net consideration of £132 million.

Irish food and sugar producer Greencore expects its convenience foods division will drive further growth in 2007, despite recent raw material cost increases and an electrical fire at its largest sandwich facility, Manton Wood.

Cake company Inter Link Foods has announced it will not now meet market forecasts for the financial year ending 5 May, 2007.

It is good news for the baking industry that it will have one show, with the sole aim of promoting bakery machinery, ingredients and baked goods (pg 4). The agreement between BEL, the board which ran Food & Bake exhibition, and Wm Reed Exhibitions, which will launch The Baking Industry Exhibition at the NEC in April 2008, means a show that will carry the whole industry and also have theatre, live demonstrations and widespread promotion through many media.

"As from 29 January 2007, a dormant provision in the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 has been activated, allowing the NHS in England and Wales to recover the costs of treating persons who have incurred any sort of injury and who have successfully sued a negligent party for compensation. Equivalent steps are being taken in Scotland.

The Traditional Polish Bakery, set up in Dublin 12 months ago, is now expanding its nationwide distribution of traditional Polish bread lines.

In the 16 February issue of British Baker we carried a report that Vision Capital planned to close the Fletchers Bakery at Sheffield.

Food and agriculture group Carr's said last week that resistance in the UK market to a flour price increase will hit group profits this half year.

Bakery Exhibitors Ltd (BEL) the board of Food & Bake exhibition, has decided to align itself with William Reed's Baking Industry Exhibition. The result will be the first-ever joint event for the baking industry, which will take place at the NEC from 6-9 April, 2008.

The Children's Trust said last week that it hoped craft bakers could raise more than £50,000 through National Doughnut Week, making it the most successful to date.

n Biscuit company Burton's Foods says its has removed hydrogenated fats from its entire portfolio of over 100 products, including Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels, baked from the end of January 2007.

Our Fruit Frangipane won us the New Baked Product Award at the Baking Industry Awards a few years ago. This simple recipe is a variation of a classical fruit and almond tart and has a shelf life of two or three days. A selection displayed in a shop window makes for a very attractive seasonal display.

A complete range of Belshaw doughnut-making equipment is being offered in the UK market by Mono Equipment (Queensway, Swansea).

Company

Country Choice (Orpington, Kent) has two varieties of fun-size, thaw-and-sell muffins in its Bake & Bite range, available in Double Chocolate or Blueberry flavours.

BakeMark UK (Wirral, Merseyside) has developed a range of cookies and doughnut mixes, which are licensed with Nestlé.

McDougall's range of snack mixes, from RHM Foodservice (Addlestone, Surrey), enables bakers to produce cookies, doughnuts and muffins easily, using McDougall's Muffin Mixes, offered in three varieties: chocolate, toffee and plain. The mixes can be adapted with extra flavours and ingredients, such as fruit and chocolate.

Weight Watchers has launched American-style Mini-Muffin packs containing a mix of Chocolate Chip and Double Chocolate Chip Muffins.

According to Kluman & Balter (Waltham Cross, Herts), healthy-eating practices, purportedly spelling the demise of the muffin, have actually contributed to an increase in demand, particularly for fruit varieties. The breakfast muffin, can be packed with sultanas, raisins, apricots or walnuts and flavoured with cinnamon and vanilla. A more exotic version could include dried tropical fruits, all of which are offered

Moy Park Foodservice (Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire) offers branded donuts under the Kitchen Range Foods label.

Reiser (Milton Keynes) has been selling and servicing food processing and packaging equipment for almost 50 years. Reiser equipment can be found in a variety of bakery applications worldwide, including depositing, sheeting and dividing, as well as packaging.

Dawn Foods (Evesham, Worcester) has launched Extra Moist Muffin Mix into its Baker's Select Range in two classic flavours - original and chocolate.

BB's Coffee and Muffins is a place where teenage girls congregate, sipping cappuccinos eating cookies and catching up on the latest celebrity gossip. Meanwhile the odd 'suit' pops in for a quick fumble through the newspaper, a fresh baguette and double espresso. It also offers a safe haven for the hard-core shopper - or the more mature lady - to catch their breath and get a sugar hit before re-entering the scrums of people searching for those all-important bargains in the sales.

nd fun. But unlike the thousands of other businesses, which make that claim, you actually believe her - around about the time that she gets onto the subject of ducks.

Reading Alan Stuart in British Baker the other week (12 January pg 13), I thought how true it is that small can be successful against the big boys and his comments about Peter Drucker were so right. The thing I remember of Drucker was his view that all car show rooms should have a red convertible on display, which would bring in the men as it would make them think of wild youth and sex, while their wives would then make them buy a sedan.

Training continues

London chain Coffee Republic has cut costs at its head office by 25%, after reporting that the value of its net assets had fallen below half the value of paid up share capital.

The Salt Manufacturers' Association (SMA) is reminding bakers of the benefits of salt, otherwise know as sodium chloride, and says that it should not simply be dismissed as unhealthy.

US bakery, drinks and household products company Sara Lee Corporation announced last week that net sales for its international bakery segment rose 5% to $199m in the second quarter ending 30 December, driven by favorable foreign currency exchange rates.

I like to enjoy my food, but I also I want to be sure that what I eat is 'good' for me. Of course, no single type of food is ever going to be good or bad, it's a question of how it fits into our overall food intake.

A £4.4m food and drink skills 'academy', which co-ordinates existing training programmes in England, will launch in April.

The Duke of York visited Crantock Bakery in Cornwall last week to unveil a plaque marking the completion of a £1.1m investment in the site.

Coffee giants Starbucks and Costa Coffee have both announced plans for further overseas expansion.

Bread baskets firm Bakers Basco plans to focus on reducing basket losses in 2007, as it rolls out an industry standard 10-loaf basket.

Bakery sales rose 6.1% to £3,438m in 2006, above the average 3.6% growth seen in the grocery sector, according to new data from Information Resources (IRI).

Allied Bakeries has revealed plans for the "UK's biggest-ever bakery relaunch" as a £40m turnaround plan gets under way.

n A teenage robber, who held up a bakery in Burnley with a rolling pin, before making off with a chocolate orange gateau, has been sentenced to nine months in jail by Burnley Magistrates Court. Drunken Andre Lennox (19) pulled off victim Robert McKenna's glasses, threatened him with a rolling pin and then snatched £60 from the till at Birtwistle's Bakery, in Padiham last August.

In our 16th February issue of British Baker we carried a report that Vision Capital planned to close the Fletchers Bakery at Sheffield. This was incorrect and no such closure is planned. We apologise to Vision Capital and Fletchers Bakeries for this error and regret the distress and confusion that it has caused. In a statement to British Baker, Fletchers has reconfirmed that a consultation process is now underway with Trade Union representatives and employees regarding the future employment requirements of the business. The consultation underway affects up to 80 job roles. The decision to initiate the consultation has been taken on purely economic grounds, as the business has suffered both from the impact of a fire which destroyed a third of the site in July 2006 and also from a continued loss of market share and increasing cost of materials. Fletchers understands that this process is likely to cause concern for those potentially affected and their families and has thanked employees and trade unions for their efforts and continued support at this time. The company will make every effort to support those employees affected.

13 Focus On Flour

This recipe comes from Hannah Glasse's 1747 book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Fortified wine, known as "sack", was used in the original recipe. Sack was like a dry sherry, which serves as an excellent modern equivalent.

Baking 'front-of-house' is increasingly popular for all sorts of products, especially for baking bread.

As part of its drive to offer electric alternatives to conventional gas cooking ranges, Lincat (Lincoln) has added a four hotplate electric range to its Opus 700 series of equipment. "For many years, gas-powered ranges have been at the heart of commercial bakeries in this country," says Nick McDonald, marketing and export director of Lincat.

OPM Chocolate, the division of OPM that supplies solutions for the confectionery industry, and represented in the UK by Hänsel UK (Peterborough, Cambs), has introduced an electronic piston-type forming machine for depositing fat, cream or sugar-based chocolate.

Pantheon Catering Equipment (part of Monarch Catering Equipment and Crompton Direct, Bolton, Lancashire) has added contact grills to its range of equipment. With a heated surface both above and below, cooking times for a wide range of food can be halved compared to open grilling, according to the company.

Record Food Equipment, available from Brook Food Processing Equipment (Minehead, Somerset), has made jelly spraying easier.

With modern trends towards healthy eating, there is increased demand for freshly prepared and well-presented vegetables and fruit. The Ital vegetable cutter available from Apuro (Solihull, West Midlands) produces a steady stream of chopped vegetables at a high speed to keep prep time to a minimum, says the firm.

Porkka UK (Watford, Hertfordshire) has launched a range of refrigerated counter displays for use with a wide selection of foods. The range comprises the Porkka Cold Spot (+4°C to +8°C), the Porkka Chill Display (+2°C to +6°C) and the Porkka Spot Freezer (-8?C to -12°C).

Vauxhall Astra Van

A leading UK bakery manufacturer and supplier of bakery components, Baking Solutions, has recently purchased a complete muffin-processing unit worth £100,000 from specialist depositing technology manufacturer Turbo Systems.

A fatal combination of chronic poverty, natural disasters and extremes of drought and flooding, mean that Malawi has repeatedly been affected by dire famine since 2002. It is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world, with an average life expectancy of around 40 years. The country has an alarming rate of infant mortality, while thousands of children are orphaned every year due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. People often spend what little money they have on crucial medicine rather than food.

John Watts works as senior technologist at ingredients supplier to the baking industry, National Starch Food Innovation. He formerly worked as process manager for British Bakels. Now, clearly relishing his new role, he takes us through a typical day.

Well who'd have thought it? Only 60 years since the organic movement was a glint in the farmer's eye and people suddenly can't get enough of organic - quite literally.

T he Sector Skills Council Improve recently embarked on a drive to attract new talent into the baking industry by rationalising the training courses on offer to ensure they are vocationally led. The campaign is targeted at delivering a 35% increase in enrolments to bakery courses across the UK and will go some way to addressing the current issues of an ageing workforce and the impending skills shortage.

Premier's £1.2bn proposed takeover of RHM was approved by The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) on 5 February.

Food & Hotel Asia 2008 (FHA2008), an international food event, is set to take place from 22-25 April 2008 at Singapore Expo. This year a Bakery & Pastry 2008 show has been incorporated for the first time to reflect demand from Asia's growing baking industry.

Northern Foods' chief executive Pat O'Driscoll has been replaced by Stefan Barden, the director formerly responsible for its chilled and remaining bakery divisions.

This week, I would particularly like to draw your attention to the Friday Essay by Rob Devlin (pg 13) entitled: Make Bakery Attractive! You cannot move an inch in this industry without someone saying: "What are we going to do about the lack of next generation bakers?"

The National Association of Master Bakers (NA) has announced that its annual conference will be held on the first Bank Holiday in May in Harrogate.

I nearly choked on my toast the other day, while reading my newspaper at the breakfast table. For there, in print, was Professor Graham MacGregor, of pressure group Consensus Action on Salt and Health, praising our industry. "The UK is leading the world on salt reduction. Many of our food manufacturers should be congratulated on the effort they have made to reduce the amount of salt they add to our foods," he said.

General Mills UK has bought family-owned pastry supplier Saxby Bros, to run alongside its Jus-Rol business.

National Doughnut Week 2007 will run from 5-12 May and will raise money for The Children's Trust, a national charity that provides specialist care and rehabilitation for children with multiple disabilities.

I was sad to receive a letter from the National Association of Master Bakers (NA) informing me that it was to close its training arm (see BB, 26 January, pg 6) and felt I could not let this pass without comment.

Warburtons is launching a new Healthy Harvest loaf, available from 19 February.

Inter Link said last week that illness had forced its executive chairman, Alwin Thompson, to retire with immediate effect.

The year so far has been hailed as "the worst period for bakeries since the 1980s", with a spate of companies announcing redundancies or calling in administrators.

Newcastle-based North East Bakery has bought 15 Milligans high street bakery shops for an undisclosed sum.

Sainsbury's this week joined the board of patrons for the Baking Industry Exhibition (BIE), which is set to take place on 6-9 April 2008 at Birmingham's NEC.

Administrators were called into frozen desserts factory Bonne Bouche Frozen UK in Hartlepool last week, for the third time in four years.

n A £4.4m Skills Academy will open in April, said food and drink sector skills council Improve. It has been working with employers, including Warburtons and RHM, on the academy, which is expected to serve over 28,000 people in its first four years. The academy will co-ordinate existing training programmes through approved Academy Training Centres, of which there are five at the moment. Another 35, including Thomas Danby in Leeds, are expected to be approved within three years.

I'm sure the baking industry would like more consumers to 'Just Ask' whether the bread, pie or cakes they are buying are made locally or with British ingredients.

As one of the 800 members who do not use training from the National Association of Master Bakers, I too am a little fed up with the near hysteria over the Board's decision to look for better quality and more cost-effective training for our members. As CEO Gill Brooks Lonican's letter in British Baker (26 January, pg 6) states, there is no intention to stop training by bakers for bakers, so the criticism is somewhat premature.

The Scotch Pie Club, which runs the annual World Scotch Pie Championships, has raised just under £11,000 in its inaugural National Scotch Pie Week, held last November in aid of The Scottish Society for Autism.

Alan Greenshields

Ethnic bread producer Honeytop Speciality Foods produces over two million naan breads each day at its factory in Dunstable.

Billington's (Peterborough) has been selling organic cane sugar in the UK since 1992, as an extension to its range of natural unrefined cane sugars. The firm now supplies the food manufacturing, retail and foodservice sector with the widest range of organic cane sugars, it says. The range includes: Organic Unrefined Granulated Sugar, an organic alternative to white refined sugar; Organic Unrefined Caster Sugar, a light, free-flowing sugar with a buttery taste; and Organic Unrefined Demerara Sugar, with a coarser crystal.

Independent flour mill FWP Matthews (Chipping Norton, Oxon) offers a Cotswold Organic Crunch flour, containing organic wheat flour, organic malted wheat flakes and organic malted wheat. The firm's range includes four organic white flours, three organic brown flours, three organic French flours and three other organic cereal flours.

The organic bread market saw a 10% sales increase in 2006, and 2007 is set to see the same growth. In response, ADM Milling (Brentwood, Essex) supplies Soil Association-certified Organic Stoneground Wholemeal flour, milled at the Allinson Flour Mill, and Organic Strong White flour.

For producing organic rustic bread, Fermex International (Worcester, Worcestershire) offers Crème de Levain, a patented live, liquid sourdough, with standardised, high levels of acidifying bacteria and aromatic yeasts in packs of five litres and 1,000-litre tanks.

Baking ingredients supplier Zeelandia (Billericay, Essex) has recently launched a new version of its Zedamols Liquid product, which does not contain hydrogenated fats.

Steenbergs Organic (Ripon, North Yorkshire) has launched a range of heat-treated organic herbs and spices, including poppy seeds, black pepper, chilli, coriander seeds, cumin, ginger, paprika, rosemary, thyme, turmeric and white pepper. Products are sourced from suppliers in the Mediterranean, India, Africa and Sri Lanka.

The Village Bakery (Melmerby, Cumbria) has introduced Organic Brownies, made with Green and Black's organic dark chocolate and crunchy walnuts.

The assault on the senses starts at the front door of the Whole Foods Market. As you enter, a rainbow of dewy fresh fruit and vegetables stretches from the front entrance in wicker baskets.

The organic market is expanding rapidly. Shoppers are voting with their trolleys and even a brief visit to a supermarket is likely to provide more than enough evidence of burgeoning consumer demand for organic goods.

Two months ago we reported on the ascendancy of the sliced-bread brands that were stealing market share left, right and centre from retailer own-label bread manufacturers (December 1, 2006, pg 26).

Ingredients supplier Sonneveld's European Bakery Innovation Centre (EBIC) is taking the baking industry into the 21st century. Digital cameras can record everything in iats test bakery and images they take are put on the internet so that they can be viewed anywhere in the world.

Q How did you come into the baking industry?

I'm on a full-time NVQ Level 2 in bakery course at Brooklands College, in Weybridge, Surrey. We make all sorts of products, such as white loaves, brown loaves, puff pastry, lemon cake, doughnuts, ginger cake, scones - anything really. My favourite is bread, because I find it easy and more fun to make. You don't have to think too hard when you're doing it and you tend to make a lot more bread than other products.

Netherlands-based food company CSM, which owns BakeMark UK, is to sell off part of its French subsidiary, Delices de la Tour, to French baker Panavi for approximately E15m.

The National Bakery School in Dublin is setting a precedent in Irish bakery education by starting a new baking degree course in September of this year.

"This year will be the year when demand for healthier eating options will push demand for nuts, dried fruit and seeds to all time high levels," said RM Curtis' trading director Mark Setterfield in its new report - Edible Nuts & Dried Fruit, Dec 2006-Jan 2007.

I am absolutely thrilled for Martin Lightbody! The celebration cake maker who also makes bakery snacks has agreed to sell the company to Finsbury Foods for £37.5m (see pg 4). Martin led the sale of Lightbody's 26 retail shops in 1995 to set up a wholesale company. In that time he and his team have driven turnover from zero to £50m.

As we enter 2007 the industry is facing up to major increases in costs. One local baker recently told me that he was experiencing the biggest increases in raw material prices in living memory. His tale is typical.

Ginsters has added 'submarine' rolls as it develops its sandwich range, with fillings including chargrilled chicken and bacon, double cheese and onion and ham, egg and tomato.

Pressure group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) has called for a boycott of breads with high salt levels as part of its Salt Awareness Week campaign, which runs until February 4.

US natural and organic retailer Whole Foods Market says the bakery department will be the centrepiece of its first UK megastore, which will open in Kensington, London in June.

Icelandic firm Bakkavor, which owns New Primebake, said it had strengthened its position in the UK, as it released its results for 2006 this week.

As part of Marks & Spencer's recently announced £200m, eco-friendly Plan A, it is pledging to reduce the use of packaging by 25%. In addition, packaging will be made from sustainable materials or recycled sources, such as cardboard, glass and plastic.

Miller Rank Hovis will take an 80sq m stand at the Baking Industry Exhibition (BIE) on April 6-9 2008 at Birmingham's NEC.

FIVE workers at the Allied Bakeries plant in Gateshead have been arrested by immigration officers on charges of working illegally.

n Bakery retail group Lyndale Foods says it saw good trading in the run up to Christmas. The company, which operates the Maison Blanc, Sayers and Hampsons fascia, will complete a strategic review by April, chairman Sandy Birnie told British Baker.

Leeds-based malt loaf specialist Oakdale Bakeries called in administrators KPMG Restructuring on January 26.

Finsbury Food Group's purchase of Lightbody Celebration Cakes will make it the leading player in the UK premium cakes market, it claimed this week.

Alan Greenshields

Ethnic bread producer Honeytop Speciality Foods produces over two million naan breads each day at its factory in Dunstable.

Billington's (Peterborough) has been selling organic cane sugar in the UK since 1992, as an extension to its range of natural unrefined cane sugars. The firm now supplies the food manufacturing, retail and foodservice sector with the widest range of organic cane sugars, it says. The range includes: Organic Unrefined Granulated Sugar, an organic alternative to white refined sugar; Organic Unrefined Caster Sugar, a light, free-flowing sugar with a buttery taste; and Organic Unrefined Demerara Sugar, with a coarser crystal.

Independent flour mill FWP Matthews (Chipping Norton, Oxon) offers a Cotswold Organic Crunch flour, containing organic wheat flour, organic malted wheat flakes and organic malted wheat. The firm's range includes four organic white flours, three organic brown flours, three organic French flours and three other organic cereal flours.

The organic bread market saw a 10% sales increase in 2006, and 2007 is set to see the same growth. In response, ADM Milling (Brentwood, Essex) supplies Soil Association-certified Organic Stoneground Wholemeal flour, milled at the Allinson Flour Mill, and Organic Strong White flour.

For producing organic rustic bread, Fermex International (Worcester, Worcestershire) offers Crème de Levain, a patented live, liquid sourdough, with standardised, high levels of acidifying bacteria and aromatic yeasts in packs of five litres and 1,000-litre tanks.

Baking ingredients supplier Zeelandia (Billericay, Essex) has recently launched a new version of its Zedamols Liquid product, which does not contain hydrogenated fats.

Steenbergs Organic (Ripon, North Yorkshire) has launched a range of heat-treated organic herbs and spices, including poppy seeds, black pepper, chilli, coriander seeds, cumin, ginger, paprika, rosemary, thyme, turmeric and white pepper. Products are sourced from suppliers in the Mediterranean, India, Africa and Sri Lanka.

The Village Bakery (Melmerby, Cumbria) has introduced Organic Brownies, made with Green and Black's organic dark chocolate and crunchy walnuts.

The assault on the senses starts at the front door of the Whole Foods Market. As you enter, a rainbow of dewy fresh fruit and vegetables stretches from the front entrance in wicker baskets.