Flour not good enough — bakers

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 22

Flour not good enough — bakers

The quality of bread had fallen because the flour available this year was not good enough, the manager of a Christchurch bakery said last evening. Mr B. Scott, of C. D. Boon, Ltd, said that bakers could not bake loaves of the standard they had achieved in previous years. “This is because of the poor quality of the local wheat, from which our flour is made,’’ he said. in some parts of the North Island, bakers were using a large proportion of flour made from imported wheat, and this was of a good quality and producing good bread, he added. He was commenting on a staiement made in Wellington by the director of the Assoc<o4 1 , . . 4 Drv 1 r *- .. 71\ S — LY Y

lat iun ui Dcmei b V IV1 * rv - Hickin), who said that the low standard for flour fixed by the Wheat Board “enabled it to distribute flour to bakers that was not satisfactory for the making of

bread.” Low volume, more rapid .{Staling, and brittleness of the ,i crumb were the chief factors ’i complained about by con.i.sumers, Mr Hickin said. , Bakers were doing everyt thing possible to offset deficiencies in the quality of flour [sent to them, but in spite of their best efforts they could (not make good bread from poor flour. Mr Hickin declined to expand on his statement when . the N.Z.P.A. asked if his as- . sociation intended to make . representations to the Wheat • Board. ■ The general manager of the J Wheat Board (Mr E. R. W. i Reedi last evening denied that the board’s standard for I flour was too low. d He agreed that the quality, [of wheat harvested this year

was much lower than it had been in previous years, but said that similar declines had' occurred in the past. “However, the fact that the quality of wheat may be low in any particular year does not affect the standard we set for flour." he said. “That has been unchanged for sev-1 eral years.”