For more than a century the CBA has been doing important work supporting and nurturing the industry we love. They provide education and practical support through their benevolent and education funds. They share knowledge through regular events. And they provide a forum for bakery professionals to meet and build contacts with like-minded peers.
Like us, the CBA is passionate about bakery and preserving it as a craft so we're delighted to be supporting them as a Silver Supporter. If you're a member too, we're looking forward to meeting you at future CBA events!
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This new 73,000 square foot facility adds significant capacity to our existing nationwide network of depots in Bristol, Livingston, Leeds and Lewes. It brings total capacity across all of our depots to more than 200,000 square feet - that's around three football pitches full of bakery ingredients!
Being a purpose-built depot it has given us the opportunity to embrace the latest warehouse and logistics thinking. We're using a fully digital Warehouse Management System (WMS) from day one and the layout has been designed to minimise the time between orders being received and going onto our vans. And like all our other depots, Daventry stocks ambient, chilled and frozen products.
For customers of BFP all this means more products in stock nationwide and faster deliveries in the Midlands and Home Counties.
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Once you’ve opened an account with us online (it only takes 15 seconds) you’ll start earning points straight away. No matter what you buy or how much you spend, we’ll credit two Dough-kens (Get it? Tokens...Dough-kens) to your account for every pound spent. You can then trade Dough-kens in for money-off vouchers with 100 points equal to £1 off.
You can earn Dough-kens in other ways too.
As a member of Dough you’ll also receive exclusive offers. You don’t need to do anything to benefit from this – we’ll get in touch whenever a new perk is launched.
So why not start benefitting today?
If you’ve already opened an account online with BFP, you’ve been automatically registered as an member of Dough. Just click on the 'Dough' icon on the bottom right of our website (if on a PC) or 'view balance and spend' in the menu to view your points balance and claim rewards.
And if you haven't opened an online account with BFP then sign up today - it only takes 15 seconds.
]]>Because it's such a fixture in the bakery we can sometimes take flour for granted, so today we thought it might be nice to take a fresh look at our old friend.
]]>Because it's such a fixture in the bakery we can sometimes take flour for granted, so today we thought it might be nice to take a fresh look at our old friend.
First, back to basics. What is flour?
The broadest definition of flour is any powder made by grinding grains, roots, beans, seeds or nuts (see how flour is made here). That means that there are dozens of niche flours made from ingredients like coconuts, soya, almonds and rice. In the UK bakery industry though, our go to is wheat flour. Testament to that is that the UK produced 4 million tonnes of wheat flour in 2019 and most of that (69%) was for bread making.
Whilst flour typically means ground wheat, not all ground wheat is the same. The first difference between wheat flours is which parts of the wheat grain they include - endosperm, germ and bran. If the flour contains 100% of the grain then it is ‘wholemeal flour’, if some bran is removed it is ‘brown flour’ and if everything but the pale endosperm is removed, it is ‘white flour’.
After the level of refinement, the second difference between flours is in the protein content. When wheat flour is mixed with water its proteins interact with each other to form gluten. It’s this gluten level which determines whether our bakes are airy and chewy or hard and crumbly (for an in-depth accessible article on gluten see here). This means that it’s essential to choose the right flour with the right gluten level for your desired bake.
Flour made from wheat varieties with a high protein and therefore gluten content is known as ‘hard flour’. Hard flour has a gluten content of 12 – 14% and makes an elastic, chewy dough whose crumbs hold together when baked. Flour made from lower protein wheat varieties is called ‘soft flour’. Soft flours have a gluten content of 5 – 9% and make bakes with a finer, crumblier texture.
But what about bread flour, cake flour, 00 flour and all the other varieties?
Well, each miller has their own preference for how they refer to the different hard and soft varieties they produce. Some call their hard flours just that but most call it ‘bread flour’ or ‘strong flour’. Few refer to soft flour as soft flour preferring instead to use terms like ‘cake flour’, ‘pastry flour’ or ‘biscuit flour’ (with the name indicating the end use the gluten content is best suited for).
The other thing you might see in a flour name is a reference to how finely it is milled. For example, flour well suited to pizza dough may be labelled ‘00’ using the Italian flour grading system which classifies flour as 00 (the finest), 0, 1 or 2 (the coarsest). In the UK there is no standardised scale so the label ‘00’, ‘fine’ or ‘extra fine’ will often be used.
Another variety of course is self-raising flour. However, the ‘self-raising’ bit refers not to the flour itself but to what’s been added – baking powder (and sometimes salt). This baking powder is a leavening agent which causes carbon dioxide to be released into the batter, creating bubbles which increase the volume and lighten the texture of the bake.
And of course, whilst wheat may be the dominant base for flour in the UK but there’s a growing consumer trend towards gluten-free or low-gluten products. That’s where non-wheat flours come in. Varieties such as coconut flour and soya flour offer a gluten free alternative to wheat.
So it turns out that our old-friend flour is quite a complex character with many nuances. Why not explore something different in your bakery?
]]>But let’s face it, pressures on time and skilled staff means that scratch baking doughnuts simply isn’t always an option. That’s where top quality frozen doughnuts which are ready to eat once thawed come in.
]]>But let’s face it, pressures on time and skilled staff means that scratch baking doughnuts simply isn’t always an option. That’s where top quality frozen doughnuts which are ready to eat once thawed come in. Thaw-and-serve doughnuts bring five key benefits to modern bakeries and food service outlets:
As we all come out of COVID hibernation and start to ramp up again, these are exactly the kind of helping hands we need.
To help you capture these benefits we’ve recently expanded our range of frozen thaw-and-serve doughnuts. And who better to turn to for that than Dawn Foods, a doughnut legend who began their journey a century ago as a family bakery. We’ve hand-picked eight of the best from the Dawn Foods selection of premium soft ring frozen doughnuts:
We’ve also thrown a plain ring doughnut from Dawn Foods into the range if you’d prefer to coat and decorate them with your own signature finish. Outside of the Dawn Foods stable we also have quality plain ball doughnuts, jam filled sugar dusted ball doughnuts, sugar glazed ring doughnuts and sugar glazed finger doughnuts.
Click here to see and buy our full range of frozen thaw-and-serve doughnuts.
]]>Is your range tapping into these key trends?
]]>We ain’t finished yet either - further exciting expansion plans are afoot for 2021. Watch this space!
BFP also has depots and vehicle fleets in Bristol, Leeds and Livingston.
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