CHAMPIONSHIP BREAD BELOW STANDARD

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 51, 24 November 1941, Page 6

CHAMPIONSHIP BREAD BELOW STANDARD

Nelson Show Competition

JUDGES BLAME QUALITY OF FLOUR (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NELSON, November 22. The poor quality of flour supplied to bakers throughout the Dominion vvas blamed by the judges for a fiasco which occurred in the New Zealand championship bread competition for bakers at the Nelson Agricultural and Pastoral Show. “The -best loaf in the show this year, the one which won the New Zealand championship, was not as good as the worst exhibit in the bakers bread classes at the last Nelson show, was th? comment of the judges, Messrs. Forster, Russell, an'd Freeman, in a joint statement. The judges contended that the poor quality was not the fault of the bakers, who are in 10 towns in New Zealand, but was the result of the quality of the flour supplied to them, which was not up to the .standard necessary for baking first quality bread. The judges stated that some intending exhibitors had not sent their entries to compete in what was regarded as an important competition. Though they could not definitely state the reason for those defections, they felt sure the intending exhibitors had found . they could not produce bread of sufficiently high standard from the flour available. The exhibits other than the prizewinning loaves could not be described as anything but very poor from the show point of view, and the judges were unable to pay a compliment to the best of the entries.

When these comments were referred to a leading Nelson baker, he said he was not surprised. All bakers in the Dominion had to purchase their flour through the New Zealand Wheat Committee, and had no choice in the source of supplies. All bakers found difficulty in getting the best results from the flour. Formerly they would blend a proportion of Canadian flour, but the importation of Canadian wheat had now been stopped. Another baker expressed the opinion that the baking qualities of New Zealand flour had been affected in recent years by the introduction of the heading machines in the harvesting of wheat.

The championship award went to Stacey and Hawker (Christchurch), That firm also gained a certificate for runner-up. The certificate for third place went to C. J. Callaghan (Westport).