All Opinion articles – Page 21
-
Opinion
Blog: Let’s teach the next generation
How many of you have some cherished youngsters in your businesses?
-
Opinion
Blog: We all share the same dream
Many years ago I decided to go to a Manchester National Association of Master Bakers (NAMB) branch meeting at the Hotel Piccadilly.
-
Opinion
Blog: Postcard from the USA
I really like to travel and I like to go walkabout, just to see what’s out there. My dad always said that you never learn anything in your own back yard and how true that is.
-
Opinion
Smart on business succession
You’re all going to die. Or go Ga Ga. Either way Mother Nature will get you in the end! I hope that caught your attention, it was meant to and for a very good reason.
-
Opinion
At long last, he’s here!
Many bakers and owners of businesses with either sons or daughters do relish the thought of their children coming into the business… maybe one day, hopefully. On 4 February this year, that day arrived for me, as Stephen Paul Smart started working with Greenhalgh’s Craft Bakery.
-
Opinion
Blog: Profit before the nation
Before I begin, let me apologise to the entire population of faint-hearted, economically unaware, naïve shoppers about the crippling effects that the major retailers have inflicted on us and the high street. And, these changes are so profound that they are culturally changing the way we live and eat - and it’s all by their design for maximising profit.
-
Opinion
Blog: A great night had by all
It is fair to say - and I am sure my own wife will loudly agree - I am not the world’s most sociable person.
-
Opinion
Politicians should care for the big and the small
The retail picture is bleak. To put it bluntly, 2013 has started in a torrid style - awful.
-
Opinion
It is now the time of “the real bakers”
May I draw your attention to a brilliant article entitled, “A tale of two breads”, by Vanessa Barford, who was writing for the BBC News Magazine recently. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20527294 She starts her commentary taking us back 10 years to the days of the Artisan Bakers Poilane in London, who were producing ...
-
Opinion
Shop local, before it’s too late
For one brief moment, let me introduce you to the Shetland Islands, a beautiful archipelago of Scotland which lies just of its north eastern shores. They are situated about 50 miles to the northeast of Orkney and approximately 170 miles southeast of the Faroe Islands. The total land mass is ...
-
Opinion
John Reynard 17th October 1931 – 28th October 2012
The last time I saw John was five years ago at our own 50th anniversary of being in business which was held at Bolton School in their very impressive corporate function suite. Even then, confined to a wheel chair and in poor health, he still managed to entertain his table and maintain his very warm charm and charisma which many people in the baking industry had come to know and love so well.
-
Opinion
Spare me please from reality television
The Great British Bake Off is only the latest offering amongst a plethora of challenging, and public orientated programmes that pit contestants against each other for the coveted title of, “whatever of the year”.
-
Opinion
It’s all about the #soggybottoms
Sue Perkins, co-presenter on BBC Two’s The Great British Bake Off has popularised the above phrase, which spread like wildfire as a topic of discussion on Twitter last night, during the show’s grand finale.
-
Opinion
Let’s all celebrate the creators of worth
In life, I think, people can be separated into two sorts. There are the spenders of worth and there are the creators of worth – or maybe I should say of value.
-
Opinion
Corporates change via bakery
We’re used to corporate people being, well... just that, corporate. Especially the bigger boys who have so much to lose. So it is refreshing then when a senior manager gives such an honest appraisal of their company. I am, of course, referring to the talk by Nick Tatum, the bakery ...
-
Opinion
Bakers’ Blog: with David Smart
David Smart is the managing director of family company Greenhalgh’s, a position he took over from his father in 2003. He has grown the business from 23 shops to 63, and has customers among the leading supermarkets, foodservice companies and BHS. What makes a baker?
-
Opinion
What makes a baker?
OK it’s not a Monday morning teaser or one of those mind-melting puzzles that have no answer, just a simple question, what is a baker? What amazing powers have been bequeathed from above, or bestowed on that personage, ‘The Baker’?