Senior figures from Warrens Bakery, Bread Ahead and Roberts Bakery are among the key speakers at the British Society of Baking’s (BSB’s) autumn conference.

The event takes place at the Heythrop Park Hotel & Resort in Enstone, Oxfordshire on 17 and 18 October. Driving business forward is the key theme of the conference.

Global bakery challenges and trends are among the topics for discussion, as well as the future of food-to-go. Baking Industry Awards (BIA) winners also feature heavily, with presentations from 2017’s Rising Star Award winner Jessica Dalton and finalist Megan Roberts part of the line-up.

“These are challenging times for bakers and for equipment and ingredient manufacturers. Both business and technology, however, offer many opportunities to those willing to look and plan ahead. To reflect this, we’ve put together an impressive team of speakers that all specialise in forward-thinking,” said BSB chairman Paul Turner.

The full list of speakers is as follows:

  • Stan Cauvain, one of the UK’s foremost bakery scientists and technologists, will look at pioneering solutions to global baking challenges and at global baking opportunities;
  • Matthew Jones and Chris Malec from Bread Ahead will discuss their proposed Bakery Academy;
  • Lin Carson, founder and CEO of BAKERpedia, the online digital resource for bakers, will talk about her launch in the US and expansion to the UK;
  • Jonathan Scoffield, divisional marketing director of Greencore Food To Go will look at future growth in food-to-go;
  • 2017 BIA Rising Star winner Jessica Dalton and finalist Megan Roberts will discuss how they are both going further in baking;
  • Stuart Spencer-Calnan, MD of Roberts Bakery will present a paper on the company’s next-generation bakery;
  • Alex Martin, director of retail operations at Warrens Bakery (winner of the Craft Bakery Business Award at the 2018 Baking Industry Awards), will discuss the firm’s phenomenal growth in the past five years and its plans for this continued expansion;
  • Matthew Verity, business unit director – chilled & bakery at Kantar Worldpanel will present the latest trends in bakery.

Conference fees start at £137 for BSB members and £152 for non-members and are available via the BSB’s website.