Overseas bakers put harvest to the test

Overseas buyers rolled up their sleeves and put this year’s harvest to the test at the HGCA Bread Baking Workshop 2011.

Delegates from established and emerging international markets made their national breads with samples of the 2010 wheat crop in the state-of-the-art baking facilities of Campden BRI.

The hands-on event was hosted by BCE, the HGCA team responsible for representing the arable industry overseas and supporting the export of cereals. Industry personnel from Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and Algeria attended the two day workshop. It was followed by seminars covering topics pertinent to export markets, including farm assurance schemes, and a tour of the supply chain taking in a farm, grain store and port.

During the practical sessions each delegation successfully baked their national bread using uks and ukp wheat. The process highlighted the quality and suitability of the wheat and the convenience of the uks and ukp classifications as a reliable indicator of technical properties.

Delegate Carlos Sanz, of Harivasa, Spain, said: "The Bread Baking Workshop is a good way of opening our outlook on what’s happening in the industry and see how different cultures are working.

"Before we attended the workshops we would buy different origins of wheat, but you never really knew what you were working with until you had it. By testing the wheats you know what to expect and when you see ukp you know exactly what it is."

The Bread Baking Workshop follows on from BCE’s outward missions in the autumn, when the team visited the delegates’ home nations to showcase the 2010 harvest to commercial and government buyers, as well as collect market information and feedback from the industry.

The UK exported 2.43 million tonnes of wheat last year, with Spain and Portugal taking the lion’s share. Algeria is a potentially lucrative new market with an annual import requirement of up to five million tonnes of high quality milling wheat.

BCE chair George Forbes said: "The Bread Baking Workshop allows delegates to experience the wheat and demonstrates it can meet the requirements of overseas buyers.

"We’ve learnt that overseas buyers like ukp and uks and there is demand for it. Growers should consider ukp and uks varieties when deciding what to grow as it increases the marketing opportunities for their products."