Baker Manager – Video Transcript
Bakery manager
I’m Emma,I’m 35 and a chocoholic! I now work at Fudges!
Science at school
I had a love of science at school. [I] followed GCSE science and then A-levels. From A-levels I studied an HND at university, which took me into working in the laboratory which was my first job when I finished school. I’ve ‘done my time’ in a laboratory, plating up samples and seeing bacteria grow on Petri dishes, and testing of food to see what their energy level is. But now I am very much happy in a management role.
Ingredients and hygiene
When the raw materials come into the bakery they’re all logged. So, you can almost tell to the field where the flour came from, which is very important in this day and age with traceability. As soon as we’re inside the bakery we have to wash our hands – washingour hands with soap and then using a sanitiser to sterilise our hands so that the environment where we’re making biscuits is kept as clean as possible, and there’s no risk from bacteria on our hands being transferred to biscuits that might make the consumer ill.
Measuring and rolling
So, they weigh up each item on the recipe and it’s recorded against the batch code and then that’s ready to be used on the line. So, when the dough has been prepared it then gets put into a hopper which feeds onto the line to make the biscuit. If you think, at home, you have a rolling pin to roll out the dough – herewe just have a machine that rolls the dough for us and then stamps out the shape of the biscuit: round, hexagonal, square – whatever it might be. And then that’s trayed up onto racks and put into the oven.
Minimising waste
When we’re making biscuits on sight it’s important that it always conforms to specification. So, when we’re making biscuits we’re regularly weighing them to make sure they’re the right weight, the right thickness. If the biscuit is too thick then it will require longer to cook; if it’s too thin then we’ll end up burning quite a lot of biscuits, which obviously we don’t want to do too often (if at all!)
Packing biscuits
Once they’re cooled they can be packed into their packaging and sealed. It’s important that the product is sealed because that way it presents a barrier so no foreign bodies can enter the packaging or affect the biscuits. And also, biscuits, if they’re left open the moisture, will make them go stale. So, again, it’s important that we do have a good seal because our products will have six months shelf life.
Science at work
On site we have people like myself (who have a science background who are quality control, quality assurance, are checking the product) and also new product developers (who are developing recipes and running factory trials on the line).
In addition to that with the food industry there are numerous jobs associated with it. There’s the environmental health officer who works for the local council. And trading standards who do weights and measures. They’ll all come in and they’ll audit us on an annual basis to make sure that our product complies to the legal requirements.
Good job
I just find it fascinating and I love working in a factory, in factory environment, and the buzz that you get from creating things.