BAKERS AND PASTRYCOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 31

BAKERS AND PASTRYCOOKS.

ANNUAL CONFERENCE. The twenty-sixth annual conference of the New Zealand Master Bakers’ and Pastrycooks’ Association was opened on Tuesday. The retiring president (Mr J. T. Norton) occupied the chair, and there were also present Messrs Charles M'Lean W. R. Andrews, and S. M‘Millan (Wellington), J. Evans (Canterbury), M. E. Perreau (Foxton), A. F Tcnks (Wellington), J. M'Gregor, A. J. Prescott, Charles E. Boon, Clauds Cowan, G. H. Abel, R. H. Montgomery, and Samuel Gibson (Auckland), W. C. Hendry (Dunedin), H. Donald (luvercargill), William Taylor (Kaikorai), G. B. Millar (Invercargill), G. K. Mathiescr. (Auckland), P. J. Bowman (Pleasant Point), J. S. Herron (Timaru), John Gold (Balclutha), Chris. C. Lange (Invercargill), John Abbott, Walter Wright. J. it. Brown, Thomas S. Searle, F. J Campbell, V. M Dickison, G. A. Laurenson, and Robert J. Elliott (Dunedin), G. F. Newsome (Wanganui). ■WELCOME TO DELEGATES. The Chairman welcomed delegates to the beautiful city of the south. Referring to the Exhibition, he said it was one of the finest educational displays ever shown in the Dominion. He hoped they would all visit the Exhibition, and also see the beauties of the city. He also spoke of the works being carried on in the city streets, and said he hoped they would notice wliat was being done in this direction. This was a red letter day in the history of the association. It was a fine thing that they hod done in inaugurating their association 25 years ago. The conference this year was largely attended, and he w’as sure that their deliberations would bear fruit as regarded the industries in which they were directly connected. — (Applause.) In welcoming members cf the allied trades the speaker said that they realised there was need for great sympathy between their trade and the allied trades—a sympathy which they had not always enjoyed in the past.— (Applause.) Mr E. H. Lough, as representing the millers and Distributors (Ltd.), returned thanks for the welcome extended to him, and on his part he welcomed the delegates to Dunedin. He hoped the conference would be very successful and of benefit to the trade, and’ that it would help to cement further the goodwill between the baking trade anti the flourmillers By working together they guarded not only their own interests and also those of the general public.—(Applause.) Mr Richard Hudson said that, on behalf of. Distributors (Ltd.) and the Dunedin millers, he also welcomed them to Dunedin. He hoped their visit would be a pleasant one, and that when they left here they would carry away many happy 1 ccollections of Dunedin. He hoped their visit to the Exhibition would ’ i a pleasant one. He was sure, indeed, that it would be.— (Applause.) Mr Gold, president of the Otago Association, also welcomed delegates. MINUTES. The minutes of the previous conference were read and adopted. VOTE OF SYMPATHY. A vote of sympathy was passed to the relatives of the late Mr and Mrs James O. Laurenson. The conference then adjourned for the purpose of attending a reception at the Exhibition. SECOND DAY. The conference was continued on Wednesday morning, the chair being occupied by the president, Mr J. T. Won, of ™mini° n 'n. Ir '° r t 0 th<? conference resuming there was a meeting of ii, Q executive, which was co„c“ln privet ANNUAL REPORT, annual I report was then submitted. Mr Andrews (Wellington) complimented tliexecutive upon the condition disclosed in the balance sheet, and the status of affairs reflected eredß on the executive. It had been able to carry on the business and show a credit balance of fSI. The cxecutive must have given considerable thought t 0 its work - and on behalf or the Wellington Association he thanked the members for the work it had done and the results achieved. The report (published) an 3 balance sheet were adopted on the motion of Mr Andrews, seconded by Mr Perreau. of Foxton The conference then proceeded to discuss the report, certain portions being discussed in private. Mr A. F. Tonics moved and Mr Andrews seconded that they should place on sale brown bread of the same weight as white. Mr Burton moved and Mr M'Gregor seconded as an amendment that the matter be delegated to a special committee consisting of a representative from each affiliated association in the Dominion, the committee to report to the conference later. The amendment was carried. It was agreed that, with regard to the clause in the report relating to a weekly holiday, the present weekly half-holiday remain in operation. It was resolved that ri sub-committee be appointed to go into the matter of the Lours of labour, and report to the conference at a later stage. PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. Mr Norton said that his term of office was drawing to a close, and there were some matters to which he would like to draw the delegates’ attention. “It was his duty to vacate the presidential chair and to install his successor. He thanked the members for the support given him luring his term of office. lie recalled to mind that it was just 25 years ago since he and 13 others met in Wellington to discuss ways and. means of forming a New Zealand Master Bakers’ Association in order to advance (lie welfare of the bakers and pastrycooks’ business in the Dominion, and to bring into line all men engaged therein, and also to find away to work in harmony anl goodwill for uplifting the stnte of the baiting business generally. Needless to say, up to that time the'bakers did not 'know one another. The trade' was In a state of chaos, cutting prices and bankruptcy being' the order of the day. From that body of pioneers sprang the dawn of better day?, and the

fruits of those efforts are shown in the happier position of to-day. At present, he said, there was much left undone, anl theire was an urgent need for greater efforts to preach and to practise goodwill toward fellow-tradesmen. More sympathy and less criticism would do much to make for a better understanding. Never in the history of the bakers’ business has there been greater scope for research work and technical knowledge than was required in business than to-day. He appealed for sympathy towards the executive, because to ensure its success and its being successful in its judgments and guidance of the bakers’ interests, ti needed all the sympathy and help that could be given. In conc'usion, he said he sincerely hoped his successor would have a very pleasant time in store for him. He hoped to see success in the baking trade generally and that those following in his footsteps would have as pleasant a time as he had had. He thanked them one and all.—(Loud applause.) NEXT CONFERENCE. It was decided to hold the next conference at Wellington, according to promise. OFFICE-BEARERS. The following office-bearers were elected: President —Mr G. K. Mathieson (Auckland), who was invested with an elaborate collar as his insignia of office. This was the gift of the retiring president. Mr J. T. Norton, under certain conditions, and was handed to Mr Mathieson by that gentleman. Mr Mathieson moved that the collar he worn by the retiring president during the time he remained in the presidential chair, and that he be photographed wearing it. This was carried amidst applause, the collar being placed upon Mr Norton amidst renewed applause, and the election of officers was proceeded with, Messrs A. F. Tonks (North Island) and J. Gold (South Island) being elected vice-presidents The executive committee appointed consisted of Messrs 11. P. Burton, C. Cowan, R. H. Montgomery, J. A. Connon, J. M‘Gregor, and C. Buchanan. COMPLIMENTARY. It was resolved to place on record appreciation of the valuable assistance rendered by Mr T. Beaghan during the 12 months he had been on the executive. A vote of thanks was accorded the retiring president for his valuable gift to the association, and for his services in an official capacity during the past 12 months. REMIT. The following remit was received from Auckland: “That the association recommends to the Health Department the desirability of having fancy bread definitely defined. That the most satisfactory way of defining fancy bread would be by making certain shapes, say double uprights, double flats, cottage, cake, or scone loaf, all to conform to the standard weight of 21b and 41b respectively, all other shapes to be classed fancy bread, and not subject to the weight regulations.’’—The remit was referred to the chairman appointed to consider the question of brown bread, for consideration.

In the afternoon delegates made an excursion down the harbour at the invitation of the Dunedin Association, and the business in the evening was private

INTERESTING MATTERS DISCUSSED Thursday’s sitting of the Bakers and Pastrycooks’ * Conference was a particularly busy one, and a surprising variety of'subjects, of particular interest to the members of the trade and of general interest to the public, were fully discussed. In the afternoon the members listened to an interesting paper by Dr Crawshaw on a hygienic aspect of the trade. In opening his subject —“The Wrapping of Bread’’—Dr Crawshaw (District Health Officer) stated that he was going to touch on a vital question from a public health point of view. Bread, after baking. lie said, was handled many times in its transit to the consumer. When the bread left the oven it was probably quite sterile, as the heat of the oven had killed all bacilli. It was taken from the bakehouse to the cart for distribution, and was handled in transit by various persons who had unclean hands. This meant that the bread was at once contaminated. Even if it was not touched, when it became exposed to the air it became contaminated by bacilli from the atmosphere. All hands were surgically unclean, so bread in its handling was sure to become infected when touched by hand. Some little time ago a loaf was examined by the speaker which had been bought from a cart. Numerous bacilli were isolated from the loaf. Considering the matter in this way, it was evident to everyone that something would have to he done, no matter what e cost. That something was by bread wrapping. The speaker outlined seven conditions which were necessary and which he was sure the department would agree to. He also touched on the financial side of the problem, and the standardisation in the size of the loaf. Experimental work had shown that wrapped bread lost far less than half of its moisture in seven days, as compared with unwrap; ed bread. The speaker also outlined many reasons why it was advantageous to wrap bread, both from the customers’ and bakers’ viewpoint. The introduction of wrapped bread would enable bakers to bake on the day before sale, and thus night baking would be dispensed with, while a housewife could take in an ample supply at holiday time without fear of the bread going stale. Wrapped bread would keep, if necessary, for a week, and would still be moist and palatable. Mr V. M. Dickinson (Dunedin) read a paper on “The Standardisation of Size and Shape of Loaf during the Last Few Years in Europe and America as an Offset Against the Cost of Wrapping,’’ in the course of which he stated that the Americans would bake only by machinery, which was now a fine art. Although they had been very fortunate of recent years with regard to labour troubles, they did not know when such would come; therefore they had adopted the motto, “Foolproof Machinery,” and if their employees walked out without giving notice the employers communicated with the Employers’ Association, which despatched a car load of strike breakers. The men who worked in the mbdern bakery were nothing more than labourers, whose only work was the pushing ‘ of trays and racks about the buildings, together with the cleiftiing up of the bakehouse and utensils. They could understand, how little a modern baker had

to worry about skilled labour. All employed skilled chemists, who set the formulae times and temperatures for the unskilled men to carry out, and they worked to charts which were being checked up all the time. When the New Zealand bakers considered that for a moment they would say: “We cannot do likewise in this country.” To that he would say: “We can, by making one-shape loaf,” and the machinery manufacturers had seen the trend of events by catering for both the small and large breadmaker. He had visited a Dunedin bakery where no fewer than nine men were working from shortly after midnight till after 1 p.m. to produce about 2800 loaves of a multitude of sizes. Against that he had visited a bakery abroad which was turning out no fewer than 80,000 1 Jib loaves, and the total number of employees actually in the bakehouse was nine, which was an output of 1000 loaves per eight hours per man. To attain that was impossible without standardisation. Every bakery manager to whom he had spoken had informed him that it was the standardised loaf that had made machine baking possible and wrapping universal, which certainly had paid for itself by cutting out shapes, and that even if they had made two extra shapes it would reduce their profits by thousands of dollars per year. Mr Dickinson also dealt with matters of interest in England and America.

At the evening session proceedings opened with a paper delivered by Mr J. “• Connon, president of the Auckland Master Bakers’ Association, on apprentices and their training. Mr Connon said he had been delegated from the last conference at Invercargill to go into the apprentice subiect. The speaker had drawn up no tangible scheme, for reasons which were many and complicated. The speaker had tried in Auckland to interest everybody connected with the trade regarding the desirability of technical training but without much result. The Operatives’ Union did not bother about the matter from the viewpoint that the more apprentices taken on the more competition there would be for situations. By reason of keeping the supply of apprentices on the short side, wages would automatically be forced up. The speaker had been in communication with the Australian States, and from what could be gathered from correspondence, the technical training and syllabus in vogue there was very half-hearted and would not merit an immediate expenditure of money. A recent list of 100 boys who had applied to learn trades was represented by a fair number of applicants for each trade with the exception of the baking trade. The cause, in the mind of the speaker, why lads had no desire of learning the trade, was in some measure due to parents assisting their boys to enter professions instead of skilled trades. However, in time the professions would * become full and lads would turn to the skilled trades. A vote of thanks was extended lo the speaker. “The catspaw of the public and the politician is the baker,’’ declared Mr W. \V. JVliilar, of Invercargill, when he delivered his paper entitled “The Catspaw.’’ He declared that the, modern attacks through the columns of the daily press were simply a survival of the brutal and ignorant dark ages. The persistent distortion of the truth put the baker in a false position. He was offside with the press, offside with every amateur economist in the land, including the politicians, and, what was more important, offside with his customers, the general public The speaker concluded a condemnation of the attitude of the press towards bakers by stating that a committee of some sort should be set up to go into the matter of replies and publicity of the bakers’ side of the whole question. Messrs W. Millar (Invercargill), Hawker (Christchurch), W. R. Andrews (Wellington), and Barker (Auckland) were appointed a Publicity Committee to watch the daily press to place before it the bakers’ side of the question, and to refute any attacks and make explanations to the public. Mr 11. P. Burton, of Auckland, delivered the final lecture of the conference when he took as his subject “Facts and Figures.” The address dealt with a system of reports each week in connection with the business of bread-making. He also covered the system of biokkeep ing which would be best applicable to the trade.

The paper, which was highly interesting from a master bakers’ point of view, was accorded hearty applause. During the week a special committee deliberated on a number of points. The committee recommended to last evening’s meeting of conference: —(1) “That this conference confirms the recommendation of the deputation which waited on the Department of Health towards the end of last year that the weights of brown and wholemeal bread shall be a minimum of lflb.” (2) “Having reference to hours of labour as provided for in the present award, the conference recommends that no action be taken.” (3) “That conference confirms the recommendation originally made to the Health Department that fancy bread shall be a loaf the shape of which is different from the standaid loaf, so that no one when buying will be under the impression that he or she is buying a standard loaf.” All the recommendations were adopted.

Mr A. Budd (Auckland] was elected a life member of the association, and the conference passed a motion of sympathy with him in his illness. The conference closed with hearty votes of thanks to the Dunedin bran h, tin* secretary, the press, and those responsible for the entertainments.