In this series, British Baker talks to people from across the baking industry to find out about their career path, what their job involves, and the latest trends that are shaping their work.
We’re looking to showcase a diverse range of talent and job types across the industry, so if you’d like to be involved, please email dan.riley@wrbm.com.
Name: Adam Cutting
Age: 42
Job title: Senior Development Chef
Company & Location: English Cheesecake Company, London
Education: Advanced GNVQ Hospitality & Catering, NVQ3 Food Prep
Tell us about your career so far:
After catering college in Exeter, I worked in various restaurant and hotel kitchens in Devon and later in London, such as at Le Caprice. I also taught classes at Jamie Oliver’s Recipease in Notting Hill and ran the cookery school at a small family run French traiteur. I then moved into development within airline catering for a more balanced work life after getting married in 2015. Covid obviously had a huge impact on both catering and air travel so, after spending a year on furlough, I transferred into manufacturing development and spent three years working in the chilled ready meal sector before joining English Cheesecake Company in early 2024.
How would you describe your job in a sentence or two?
I am responsible for the creation of new products, both flavour profiles and product formats, ensuring that they fit all of the necessary criteria from a quality aspect through to fitting the costing brackets. I’m also continuously working on finding where existing products can be improved.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Depending on where we are within a critical path for a launch, I can either be overseeing factory trials, developing recipes in the NPD kitchen, creating samples for photography, writing recipes, reviewing new ingredients, meeting with suppliers, or working with other departments to ensure everything NPD keeps moving.
Tell us about a challenge you’ve faced recently:
With the ever-increasing cost of ingredients, developing recipes and finding alternatives to negate these rising costs is a constant challenge. The costs of dairy have been particularly hard to manage, as it makes up such a high percentage of our cheesecakes, be it cream, cheese, or milk.
What have been some highlights of your career?
Seeing my products and recipes out in the world and being enjoyed by people all over the country still feels very special. I’m really excited about an upcoming launch of our new Rhubarb & Custard Cheesecake Bites – they’re my absolute favourite. Meeting Annie Lennox whilst teaching was also pretty cool.
What’s a common misconception about your role?
Not a misconception per se, but I don’t think people are aware just how many different departments and moving parts are involved within the development process. From Procurement & Purchasing, Production, and Technical, to Sales & Marketing departments, pretty much everyone is involved through the process at one stage or another. It really is a big team effort to get products to launch.
What advice would you give to young people entering the baking industry?
Try and spend time with as many different departments as possible, gain experience and knowledge of the whole process. And try to smile and enjoy yourself.
Interested in a career in bakery? Check out Foodmanjobs for the latest vacancies
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