Brook Foods is to launch a new school in 2012 aimed at teaching both the practical and business elements of running a bakery.

The Somerset-based food processing equipment supplier will open the doors to its Brook Bakery School in January, where it will run a series of courses as of February. These will include classes on how to make various artisan breads, in addition to the commercial aspects of a start-up bakery business such as finance, production and equipment.

Ann Harris, operations manager at Brook Foods, said: "There are a lot of different courses available to both amateur and professional bakers. But they don’t always provide the assistance when it comes to running a bakery business. Bakers may get shown how to make bread but not how to turn it into a healthy profit or a successful business.

"The unique selling point of our training is that it will be bespoke, looking at all areas of running a bakery and targeting our courses at what people want to know. We want to help people understand how to use and maximise bakery equipment, and scale up bread volumes from one loaf to 100 or even 1,000 if they want."

Brook Foods’ resident course leader Michael Hanson will run and direct the programme of courses in the company’s fully functioning industrial test bakery, with a number of leading industry experts to be involved in the future. The company will also be looking to lead courses in other areas of the bakery market such as cakes and patisserie.

Harris added: "Here at Brook we are passionate about the industry. All day long we see and speak to people looking to set up and, for the past 20 years, we have supplied equipment to thousands of new start-up businesses. Now we are looking to help even more."

For course details, contact Sally Turner on 01984 640401 or sally@brookbakeryschool.com.

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