Career Focus

Hunt for bakery professionals

A student while choosing cookery as a career in hospitality needs to be aware of the growing opportunities in the baking and confectionery, writes Manish Gaur

To cater to the demands of more than lakh of bakeries in India, there is a significant need for specialised people. These professionals face a lot of challenges that need to be addressed both at the operational as well as creative levels.

Bakery products have seen a growth not only in the retail segment but at the institutional level too. The annual growth of the food industry is tipped at about 12 per cent, whereas the bakery sectors like packed products, breads, cakes, cookies and the snacks industry is growing at more than 10 per cent.

Times gone by

Walking down the memory lane would remind us of the times when bread was primarily available around hospitals and consumed more by deceased people only. It did not come under the category of food products for daily consumption. Also, bakery products were not considered as a healthy choice vis a vis other kinds of food options. With changing times, eating habits have changed too. We have bakeries mushrooming at all corners of the city. Now, ideally, a day starts with consumption of bread and cookies and would end with a dessert, post dinner. There is a wide range of food products so to say that can be made and sold in today's market. At this juncture a crucial question arises: What would be required to succeed in the bakery field? Well, according to me, a person with right knowledge and an attitude to forge ahead in the bakery business.

Today, being a baker is not easy as it appears prima facie. It is a profession that has become more challenging than it used to be a decade back. Earlier, we would describe a baker with the phrase - "Baking is like a human body", where the head represents the knowledge and precision for raw-materials, the body as the knowledge for right process, legs to walk ahead towards good presentation, and finally hands to give and take (marketing).

Career front

A student while choosing cookery as a career in hospitality needs to be aware of the growing baking and confectionery industry and the opportunities available therein. This industry, as what I have seen for the last 16 years, does require hardworking, disciplined and creative ammunitions for areas specifically as bread bakers, pastry bakers, cookie bakers, cake decorators, demonstrators, R&D, marketing and not to forget, the budding entrepreneurs.

By learning food production as a core subject one would be able to identify the difference between courses like Bachelors and Masters in Food, Hotel Management, Diploma in Baking, Diploma in Food Science, Nutrition & Dietetic, M.Sc. in Home Science and a few other vocational training programmes. On the basis of that a student comes to identify the scope of each. Various government organisations, government-aided colleges and private institutes offer these courses. These programmes are very different from each other and students need to know what they will like to focus on.

We have had students who have success stories to tell in the bakery profession from all across India. Students are generally interested to learn the right techniques along with the procedures of practical processing and the different classification that has been made simple for them in their classes. They are confident and are able to support a company or themselves with correct procedures for quick and quality baking.

About baking

Baking is described as a science as well as a stream of art. The science is needed to know more towards the making of a meal with knowledge starting from individual starch particles, the leavening gases, changes from additives, flavour from natural ingredients, bite of better textured foodstuff, preserving food for shelf, etc. It is about knowing and learning from problems and finding solutions. At the same time, baking is an art; it demands creativity from an individual towards a product.

A single or multi-product can be made creative. Here the knowledge of form, proportion, colour and designs works together to define eye-appealing food. As heard once, a senior bakery professional said - "eyes eat food first, then the nose, and finally you take a bite". So true it is in today's marketing need, starting from a creative packaging and a beautiful picture of a product to opening a pack and aroma filling your stomach, which you cannot resist!

Growing market

The market has grown faster in the last five years, as competition and new products available have had an impact on awareness and consumption likewise. A hospitality student can be much in demand after his completion of education and having "specialised" training in the bakery field. Multinational companies like raw-material manufacturers, equipment developers, food courts in malls, franchise fastfood chains, and bakery brands growing in different cities, are all offering challenging positions and strong salaries. The industry today offers immense opportunities for bakers, decorators, trainers, process managers, distributors and many more related professions.

(The author is Director-Training at the Institute of Baking & Cake Art and can be contacted at ibcablr@yahoo.com)