Bakels’ Low Gi bread mix helped the firm take the titles of Oxfordshire Business of the Year and Innovation of the Year. The Bicester-based company launched a successful marketing campaign behind the product, which included leafleting 1.3 million consumers through 1,300 independent bakers. Bakels now has plans for a new consumer PR campaign in the autumn.

The Cereals Industry Resource Centre is a new CD-Rom designed to answer questions that commonly arise in the sector, including topics such as sampling and testing, food safety and targeting the market. Get a copy by visiting: www.cerealsindustryforum.org.uk.

Brace’s Bakery will hand out grants of up to £500 to charities and community groups in Carmarthenshire as part of its relaunched Bread for the Community Fund. The firm has already provided thousands of pounds worth of help, ranging from sports team sponsorship to new play equipment.

ARMed robber Simon Brown, 31, from Kirkbymoorside, has been jailed for three years at York Crown Court for threatening a teenage assistant at Woodheads bakers in Dean Road, Scarborough, with a kitchen knife and stealing £270 from the till.

Royal Cosun subsidiary Unifine Food & Bake Ingredients has signed a deal to acquire Mundipam Productos Alimentares, a Portuguese producer of pastry and bakery ingredients, as part of its bid to become one of the top three suppliers of fine bakery ingredients in Europe.

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