Briefs

n The 7th Bakery World Cup will be held in Paris at the Europain Show in April 2008 when teams from the United States, France and Japan will compete with bakers from other nations in Western Europe. These will be chosen in qualifying rounds, which finish in November 2007.

n Greenhalgh’s Craft Bakery will celebrate opening its fifth shop in Bolton town centre by handing out 1,000 free pies on the first Friday of trading - Friday 13th October - naming it ’Friday is Pieday’. The shop will be the company’s 44th in the North West and the second to sport new corporate branding.

n New Yorkers’ favourite doughnuts face a clampdown when the city becomes the first in the US to force restaurants, cafés and street stalls to keep to a limit of half a gram of trans fat in any item served from their menus. Owners have until July to switch to using healthier oils and margarines in a bid to improve Americans’ health.

n Bakery ingredients firm Puratos is to construct a new sourdough plant in the US for its ready-to-use fermented sourdough line, which has only been produced in Europe until now. The New Jersey facility, which is due to open by March 2007, will produce three of the company’s four liquid Sapore sourdough products.

n Confectionery company Thorntons has announced that Mike Davies has been appointed as chief executive, following the resignation Peter Burdon.

n The Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (East Midlands) is funding a new farm bakery in Nottingham called Spring Lane Farm.