The Italian team which won the Sigep Golden Bread Cup last month has been stripped of its winning title and repositioned in last place, British Baker can reveal.

The contest, organised by Italian bakery industry organisation Club Arti e Mestieri, initially announced the winning line-up during the Sigep exhibition in Rimini, Italy, which took place between 19-23 January.

Five international teams, who previously took part and won past editions of the Sigep Bread Cup during the last six years, competed against each other in the contest this January, including Italy, Israel, Hungary, Germany and the US.

Each team was required to produce 12 products as part of four different categories, with overall scoring based on judging from a professional judging panel (70%), a public vote taking place at the Sigep exhibition (20%), and online voting on Club Arti e Mestieri’s Facebook page (10%).

The initial winning line-up of contestants revealed Italy as the winner, followed by Israel in second place and Hungary in third. Germany came in fourth, while the US team was positioned in fifth place.

David Mizon, one of three international judges for the Sigep Golden Bread Cup and managing director of Train2bake.com, told British Baker that the Italian team breached competition rules: “Each team was given four allocated time slots during one day to produce and present three different items at a time to the judging panel.

“While other teams had adhered to these regulations, the Italian team only made half of the items required, but were still awarded the winning title during the exhibition.”

He added the other teams in the competition had been penalised for not presenting all of the items, with the judging panel scoring one point out of a possible five points for each item that was not produced.

Mizon explained: “We had a judges meeting and decided to mark teams down on points based on not producing items. Contestants from other teams seemed confused on the day when the Italian team was awarded first place, and so was I, as I was expecting to be judging further products from this team as they had only made a total of six items.

“Therefore, I asked to amend the Italian team’s score based on this, but the Club said that overall scores would be based on a percentage of what had been produced, which seemed unfair to me and other competitors.”

The new winning line-up for the Sigep Golden Bread Cup has been officially announced by Club Arti e Mestieri today (20 February), almost one month after the competition took place.

Hungary has been revealed as the winner, with Germany coming in second and the USA being placed in third. Israel were awarded fourth, while the Italian team has been positioned in fifth place.

A spokesperson from Club Arti e Mestieri said it had reviewed the results of the competition after receiving consent to do so from all three jurors on the professional judging panel.

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