The Alliance for the Bakery Students & Trainees (ABST) held a Learning Day at Tameside College to teach students the process of new product development (NPD). 

It was deemed a success, with 23 delegates completing the course, which included receiving a customer brief, reviewing trends and working within a team to develop the products. The students formulated their own recipes, including costings, designed packaging and presented their work at the close of the day.

They completed the tasks in three teams to produce a sourdough bread product, a confectionery product and a fruited fermented product. The finished articles took advantage of new ingredients used in bakery, such as natural flavours, infused fruits, sourdough and fat reduction products.

The day was organised by ABST and supported by Tameside College, Puratos, Rank Hovis and ITS. Delegates came from both colleges and industry from across the country.

Neil Woods, ABST president, said: “It’s great to see so many young people from both college and industry attending these events, working together as a team and developing great innovative products. It was a brilliant event, and it is the aim of the ABST to support training bakers with opportunities such as this.”

Lorna Jones, curriculum leader at Tameside, said: “What a fantastic event. The learners were amazing and the whole team put so much into the event. This is what the ABST is all about.”