(from British Baker, first published February 2000)

Sometimes I wonder whether all of the ego and macho posturing gets in the way of good baking. All of us have faced arrogance from some guys on the bakery floor when we’ve tried to implement a new system, especially when it veers away from the established routine. Have you ever thought ‘if only I could sack the lot of them and automate the production

Think of the job we get bakers to do. Forget about craft for a moment and just think about the specifics of the routine. As much as we might take pride in a beautiful loaf, many of our staff are there for quite different reasons. For some it is a job, a way to bring in some cash, or a stepping stone on the way out of what they view as labouring employment. Some staff have only known night work since leaving school, and the difficulty in maintaining a steady home and social life affects their work. Lets face up to it – we attract all sorts and for only a handful will there be a deep attraction to the craft of bread-making. Yet out of this motley crew we need to create the excellence that will give our business distinction.

I know much of the work is hard graft, but the effort of labour wont in itself pay wages and increase turnover. Unless we can find ways to attract really fine intelligent staff, become less reliant on muscle, it might become near impossible to produce talented and able bakers for the future. We as employers need to look at the job we offer and make it as attractive as possible.

One way I have found is utilising day baking. When I changed the hours of baking at ‘Baker & Spice’ to introduce long process doughs, some taking 14 – 16 hours to create, the only way it could be done was to have some bakers work during the day. Suddenly, not only were we able to offer extraordinary breads, but we started to attract a different type of baker.

Working one month of days, then one month of nights, our bakers were able to go out in the evening, meet people, and really begin to enjoy the life they saw around them. I swear the quality of the bread improved in because of this. Our staff were more open to different types of breads because they could see them in context. They could enjoy buns and croissants when they got up in the morning, they could sit down in the evening and enjoy bread with their meals. They could see their work as a good part of their lives.

The years of our youth pass very quickly, and we have a moral duty to allow our employees the time to enjoy life to its fullest. Day work is simply one way of making the job a little bit better. But by making it better we saw the problems with staff evaporate. Think about ways to change the nature of bakery employment. And I bet you, if you take this advice, you’ll have fewer staff problems and better bread from the bakery.

(from British Baker, first published February 2000)

Have you noticed there is never a rush to be first with an idea in this business? There are a few that try to be second, trying to emulate the company that has done the ground breaking work. Even more strive to be third, once a sense of a new market is felt. But there is always a sodding great mass of contenders trying to come last, after the market has matured and the downturn has begun.

I heard of a large bakery’s plans to develop this wonderful new bread, ciabatta. Yes, I’m talking about yesterday, not last year or last decade. Seems the management have caught on to this trend recently, and feel there is a growing market for ciabatta in this country.

Excuse me, where do some people look for ideas? I like to keep an eye on the competition, but like an athlete in a race, if I saw 200 people ahead of me running ahead of me I might begin to wonder if I should be in a different event. As for flavour variations, do you imagine Thai-style baps really invigorating the market?

By the time you can see visible evidence of market activity, it is too late to start up, too expensive to initiate and offers diminishing chance of a profitable return. Let’s say you do a tour of the supermarkets, look at what seems to be selling, and decide to organise the production of a similar product for your bakery.

After you’ve sourced the ingredients, recipes, equipment, researched the product development, packaged it, and sent it out with the sales force, you’re gonna need to cut your price to begin with. You’re too late to join in.

If you see a market situation where the vast majority of people are doing the same thing, then if they were right you would see them all getting richer. But if evidence and simple observation shows you they’re not, then you’re better off doing the reverse.

Once everybody is eating/wearing/doing the same thing, your bright competitor will be planning the next trend. Imitate the behaviour of excellent leaders – get out there and discover what people want, innovate and strive to be first.

As multiple customers look for manufacturers that can be ‘category captains’, they look beyond the sample products on offer and try and analyse whether the company has what it takes to create a partnership success in the future. Success will be dependant on your ability to predict new trends, create excellence, and deliver consistent quality at the right price.

You can succeed if you are brutally honest with yourself and your plans for the company. Don’t research for evidence to support your theories, but look instead for the faults. There is a great difference between being positive about the future of your company, and blind optimism that ignores evidence that demands you rethink your plan.

Oh, one last thing. I’ve heard that the trend for ‘category captains’ is already reversing. Seems one supermarket is already thinking of doing the opposite.

(From British Baker, first published February 2000)

Every time I try to get bakers to use a naturally fermented sour starter, I hear the odd whine of how difficult they are to maintain. What cock and bull! Speak to bakers who use sour starters and they will tell you the reverse. Start and maintain a sourdough starter of your own – it really is a trouble free way to add flavour and character to your bread. It’s not an additive you need to buy, nor does it entirely replace compressed yeast in the bakery, and, better still, using it will enable your bakers to gain a better understanding of the flavour that can be achieved with long process doughs. Wait up, I’ll qualify this. You need to be organised follow methods exactly, check temperatures, and repeat the routine each and every day. If this is a little too difficult, what in the world is going on in your bakery?

I’ve been helping a friend at his bakery, producing large 1.2 kg white sourdoughs with a crisp crust, a fragrant and slightly acidic taste and a light open texture. Lately people have been going mad for sourdough, and he can’t make enough of them. He uses what he calls a levain, though probably more accurately should be called a poolish or sponge. Though the term levain is often casually used to refer to any bakery ferment, it more correctly describes the method used in France of old dough added with or in place of compressed yeast. For his use, it’s basically a sponge mixed without yeast and left at room temperature for several days to spontaneously ferment.

Once this occurs, a quantity of sponge is removed for doughing at 4pm, and mixed very slowly with cold water and a blend of strong whole-wheat and white flour for 15 minutes on first speed. This dough is left for a cold prove until 10 pm, scaled/shaped up and left upturned in cloth lined baskets to be baked at around 4am. The ferment is refreshed with a similar quantity of flour and water, kept at room temperature throughout the night, and the next day the process is repeated.

It’s a strict routine, but excellent bread is only ever produced by organised and careful method. And we did have our own tradition of using naturally fermented starters in this country. I have to remind you of a little of our own history. Before the widespread use of compressed yeast around the 1900’s, both spontaneously fermented and stock-set sponges were common. Even after the ease of commercially prepared yeasts became popular, older bakers at the time talked of a loss of flavour, preferring the stock and sponge method they had used with success in the past. But these ferments were difficult to keep from souring, often producing an unevenly aerated and beige coloured crumb, a problem as the prevailing taste was for sweet, white even-textured bread.

As we chased the soft white loaf during the last century, many of our good traditions were lost. From once being leaders in craft baking excellence, we reached a point where we couldn’t see beyond the short-time dough. Now we have customers asking for a sour loaf with an open texture and cream coloured crumb. We strove over the past hundred years to produce the whitest, softest, sweetest loaves we could, and now the public want the opposite. Grab this moment – all the supermarkets, food service managers, and retailers are crying out for premium breads with strong flavour, additive and preservative free. This is a chance to show the very best we can make.