(from British Baker, first published October 2000)

I must confess that I flinch at the term ‘consultant’. Possibly it’s some white male guilt peeking through, embarrassed at not doing what might be called a proper job. I mean, what would my dad say. Poncing around in my denim jacket, making what must seem like vague, glib comments while the real graft happens on the bakery floor. Sometimes it feels like one of those telly jobs, where a sharp-looking presenter walks into someone’s home, tells them it’s ugly, then proceeds to roll out some aubergine and khaki nightmare expecting everyone to be impressed.

That’s on a bad day. But other times, the good days, I really wish I could shake some bakery owners, make them see how close they are to achieving their dream. That is to grasp success, through excellence, planning, and imagination (in that order). Now this isn’t a promotion for my own other-worldly talents, nor do I attempt to speak for others. Rather to try and explain where a consultant can help, and where they can’t.

The first step might sound a bit obvious, but it involves working out what you want a consultant to help you do. Write a list of your goals for the business, and be honest and specific. Rather than writing ‘I want to make more money’, analyse the ways your company presently makes revenue, whether it be wholesale, retail, food service, or a mix of them all. If your goal is to bake excellent premium loaves, analyse your existing sales to see where the bulk of your business is. Perhaps you’re making too many flavoured bread, or too many varieties, without really capitalising on any one. Talk to your customers and try and understand what they are looking for from your business. From this information build a specific task list.

Now you could call in someone to help you at this point. But that would be a bit worrying, wouldn’t it. It might be that you need a partner who can shoulder some of the responsibility, or that there is a fault with the existing division of work within the company. If that’s the case, then you need to sit down and remember why you went into business in the first place. Look at your management structure, and correct the problem. I’m not suggesting it’s easy, but it is business rather than a hobby, and more often than not you need to be tough with yourself and the team around you.

Next, look at your list and see where the shortfalls are. Ask yourself ‘is this a job for a temporary consultant, or a full time employee.’ If you’re a wholesale bakery, and as the owner you also double as the sales rep, you may be the cause of the problem. Call us in, by all means, but all we’ll do is tell you to take your sales seriously and employ someone excellent for the job. But say you have a small chain of retail bakery outlets, and the performance and revenue seems uneven. Here, a consultant can come in for a few days, give an independent report on the sites, and help you create a blueprint for change. Specific tasks, short term goals, these are the areas a consultant can excel at.

Since employing a consultant can run to many thousands of pounds, the work you do to prepare the task can save so much money. It’s about the work we do together, and the more preparation and planning you can do in advance will also effect the benefits you will achieve. Sometimes we’re not necessary at all. I was called in once to a company whose profits were very good, products were excellent, staff happy and hardworking, image as sharp and positive as it could get. A hero company. But after explaining that their was little I could do for them, they decided to hire me anyway. Guess they liked the denim jacket.

(from British Baker, first published October 2000)

There are only two categories of bakers. The first are scratch bakers, those of us who take flour, water, salt and yeast, and take pleasure from the bread we create. The second are now to be know as sniff bakers, whose profit is from the aroma those part baked frozen loaves impart as they toast in the oven. The issue is now resolved, henceforth everybody line up under one of the two categories.

I can’t think of another trade where so many qualifiers are used. It angers me so much. Some of us sell ‘real’ bread. As opposed to ‘unreal’? Others sell ‘fresh’ bread three days afters it’s been baked, surely a contradiction in terms. Even the dreadful phrase ‘craft’ baker sounds like we should form a partnership with the guild of papier-mâché workers. We’re not craft bakers, we’re simply bakers. Think about it. By using these words to describe ourselves and our loaf, you infer there is something distinctly dodgy about the work we and other bakers do.

Perhaps because our work occurs at night it is tinged with mystery and suspicion. From the moment our civilisation looked to men to bake the daily loaf, taken from the hands of women and the home, the baker has been seen as a threat. Then later our alliance with the church and the monarchy fuelled the public’s fear and loathing. Bakers who achieved the whitest and softest loaves were accused of adulterating with alum, urine and graveyard bones. When Des O’Connor joked at the Baking Industry Awards 2000 that we throw any old rubbish into the mix, his words hinted at a similar suspicion.

Will the customer remember who among us are villains? Of course not. I remember there was a scandal a few years back over anti-freeze in cheap wine. Can’t remember vineyard, distributor, or country. But every time I swig the first glass of the cheap stuff, I think ‘anti-freeze’. But in the aftermath we didn’t see a rush to prefix the term wine with artisanal, craft, or traditional. These winemakers just went back to the task of selling their integrity to the customer.

I long for an industry that is free of ‘crusty national products’, that leaves the notion of ‘dashboard dining’ to the higher minds of chemical conglomerates, and goes back to creating a perfect loaf. Baking excellence, if you like. Creating loaves of bread where the skill and craftsmanship is tangible, loaves that almost sell themselves. You know what I mean. We’ve all made in our time those wonder breads, the sort that make you gasp in astonishment and realise there are not enough words our language.

The skills exist. There are so many good bakers, yet so few good bakeries. Too many nervous frightened bakers who won’t try to rediscover the reason they entered the trade. Apologising for every loaf and the dwindling revenue they make. So let’s make a fresh start, right now. Make our goal as an industry to dispense with the meaningless words, and create a baking industry in Britain that resonates with excellence. I want the spirits of John Kirkland, John Blandy, Owen Simmons and William Jago to look down and say we have created the future they worked for. You give us a decade of work towards excellence, and we will return to our place at the top.