Tesco adopts 'Jedi' approach to training

A new training regime is being put in place in Tesco's 500 scratch-bake and 200 part-bake bakeries to address admitted failures in its bakery training programmes, category manager Neil Franklin told the autumn BSB conference last week.Training of coaches is under way and the programme will be implemented over the next year.

"We didn't feel we had the right level of capability in our training programmes," he said. "One of the core things you'd expect of a training programme in an in-store bakery is how to make a loaf of bread from scratch. Rather embarrassingly, ours didn't. So we've revisited the whole programme, putting in four levels from bronze to masterclass and it's a bit of a Jedi programme. It's vitally important that we seek to move to more scratch solutions, but, where we can, also have the right level of bake-off."

Some 83 people attended the conference, where speakers inc-luded Gary Gibbs, product develop-ment manager at British Bakels, who warned that the EU-approved health claims list, set for publication in 2008, is set to shake up new pro-duct development. He said: "People will move towards developing products around those approved health claims." Addressing satiation - keeping you fuller for longer - will play a big role in developing bakery products, he added.

l Full report next week.

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