Bakery Congress 2013
As Breadsong already posted about, this past weekend the Bakery Congress 2013, the largest annual baking industry event in Western Canada, was held in Vancouver, BC. As tradeshows go it was cheap and I was looking for an excuse for a bike ride on a beautiful sunny day, so I pedaled over to the PNE to take a look.
The minute you walked in the door you could smell that this wasn't just any tradeshow.
Breads and sweets everywhere!
I chatted with Ross from Nunweiler's Flour Mill quite a bit and picked up a couple of bags of their organic flour, including their Red Fife Flour. I'm looking forward to giving it a try!
Lest we forget we are in Canada: hockey-themed giveaways.
Ah, the slicers. Do those every bring back memories...
Need a mixer, anyone?
This picture I took for Song of the Baker, who is always telling me about how great the flour from Anita's Organic Mill in Chilliwack is. I will get out there to check out their store, one of these days.
Baking presentations were running throughout the day. Here Craig Ponsford, former BBGA chairman and part of the Gold Medal winning Team USA at Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, and Tracey Muzzolini, from Saskatoon and who has also competed in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie with Team Canada, prepare to present on making whole wheat baguettes.
Scoring the loaves.
Craig asks "How many of you are getting asked by your customers about gluten free?" He then went on to talk a bit about the benefits of "whole-milled" whole wheat flours as opposed to whole grain flours that are actually reconstituted from white flour.
Back on the floor, you can see that there were a lot of vendors and attendees here. Vendors were selling ingredients, machines, packaging, ...
Errr.... probes too. I think this was to measure the volume of the loaves? A bit over the top, IMO, but if you bake tens of thousands of loaves a day that kind of precision matters, I suppose.
I had an enjoyable time and was able to snack on enough samples of sweets that I was thankful for the long bike ride home to work off some of it!
Comments
What a rewarding ride on a beautiful day. I wish I can be there! Beautiful pictures you have taken.
Thank u for sharing.
Evon
Thanks for sharing Floyd. Sounds like it was a very interesting and worthwhile show.
Hi Floyd,
Between you and breadsong sharing your experiences at this event with your great writeups and photos, I almost feel like I attended myself. Thanks for posting this very enjoyable read.
Franko
We were actually talking about you and wondering if you'd come over for it. Next time, perhaps. :)
Didn't even know it was going on or I would have tried to make it! As you say, next time hopefully, or maybe the one in Vegas this October.
Enjoyed both your & breadsong's post. How I wish we had something like this here! We have plenty of culinary & gourmet summits, but I don't recollect something specific on baking.
Hi Floyd,
Fantastic photos - your post captures so much of what was, at the conference.
You'll enjoy baking with Anita's Organic flour - it's good stuff, they've got a great variety of things for sale at the mill and everyone who works there is super-friendly and helpful. As was Ross from Nunweiler's, who patiently explained details about milling to me - glad you will be baking with some of the Nunweiler's flour.
I updated my post to link to yours - thanks for your great write-up!
:^) breadsong
You must have had a great time, Floyd! thanks for sharing this lovely trip with us, you and breadsong of course.
-Khalid