The Worshipful Company of Bakers has admitted four new liverymen as part of its July Court meeting at the Bakers’ Halls.

Among the new liverymen are Graham Duckworth, industrial ingredients specialist at Puratos and the Alliance for Bakery Students and Trainees’ (ABST) competition chairman, and Sara Autton, the British Society of Baking’s vice-chairman and director of Fermex International.

Autton told British Baker: “It is an honour and a privilege to become a member of the Company with such a long history and traditions. The Worshipful Company of Bakers has helped me to get my career started by awarding me a scholarship into the National Bakery School and I hope that, as a liveryman, I in turn may be able to help other bakery students get their careers off the ground.”

Alongside Autton and Duckworth was Simon Jeffreys, chief operating officer for global charity Wellcome Trust, and retired Metropolitan police officer Michael Topliss, who were welcomed as the Company’s newest liverymen.

Duckworth said: "I am honoured to have been made a liveryman, something I would had never imagined when I started in a bakery as a Saturday job at the age of 15 years old. I hope that my involvement with the Company, along with my work for the ABST, can help to continue to raise the need for regionally accessible and industry-relevant bakery education programmes to ensure the future of UK baking stays at world-class standards."