There’s a big bread pesticides scandal brewing in the UK. Someone clever but ever-so-slightly crazy has built a theremin inside a baguette. The Russians have stormed off, breaking their agreement to let Ukraine export grain from Black Sea ports. Jays and swans are in the news with bread-led stories, and there’s been a bakery tragedy in the USA. Here’s the frozen bakery supplier news, coming your way fresh from our premises in Kent, the beautiful Garden of England.

Innovative Senegalese bread

The Ukraine war is affecting grain supplies to Senegal, leaving bakers with a problem to fix. Instead of relying on supplies of imported wheat, they’re starting to experiment with bread recipes using crops they grow themselves. They can’t grow wheat because of the soil and the weather in Senegal but at the same time they can’t wait for imported wheat supplies to get back to normal. Now the small baguettes people have for breakfast, for example, are made using regular flour blended with local grains like black eye beans, couscous, sorghum and millet, giving the bread a different flavour and texture.

Baguette theremin

If you’ve ever heard a theremin, you’ll already know it’s a very strange instrument indeed. Now it has become even odder thanks to someone clever from Academy of Media Arts Cologne, who has made a theremin inside a baguette.

The resulting ‘baguetophone’ is part theremin and part piezo-percussion instrument, with a piezo pickup inside. The output from both the piezo and antenna run via Max/MSP on a computer, transforming the bread into a MIDI controller.

Russia suspends involvement in grain export deal

Russia says it will suspend its involvement in an internationally-brokered deal letting Ukraine export grain from its Black Sea ports. The announcement came after Russia blamed Ukraine for a dramatic drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. Ukraine hasn’t admitted to the attack.  Russia has also accused British troops of being involved, but there’s no evidence. The Ministry of Defence says Russia is ‘peddling false claims of an epic scale’.

Jays and swans

Have you heard of the ‘marshmallow test’? It’s a delayed gratification thing, a test designed to see if people and other animals can resist the temptation of food now in order to get better food later.

A team at the University of Cambridge gave ten jays bread and cheese while displaying some tasty mealworms – which the birds adore – behind a perspex screen. After a time delay the birds were allowed to take a mealworm snack.

All ten birds quickly realised it was better to wait for a mealworm. Some, on the other hand were more patient than others, and the more patient they were, the better their scores in intelligence tests. As Dr Alex Schnell said, “It’s just mind-boggling that some jays can wait so long for their favourite food”.

At the same time, up in Glasgow, a swan has been causing traffic mayhem. It escaped from its canal home, found its way to the middle of a busy road, then decided to stay put. The stubborn bird refused to move for cars, it just sat there cleaning itself. Two men tried to tempt it to safety with some bread, but failed. Luckily a policeman arrived, took over the bread, and managed to lead the bird safely off the road.

NYC bakery freezer tragedy

Artisan bakery can be dangerous thanks to extremely hot ovens and extremely cold freezers. A New York City bakery worker, Mahamadou Dansogo, was found dead inside a walk-in freezer at Beigel’s Bakery in Brooklyn last week, discovered by a co-worker. It looks like he was accidentally locked inside the freezer while cleaning it in the early hours of the morning. Things like that can never happen in our bakery, our health and safety procedures and processes make sure everyone’s always looked after properly. 

FREE artisan bread samples

In foodservice? As a wholesale bread supplier with an excellent reputation, we’re delighted to oblige. Just ask and we’ll send you a big free box of beautiful wholesale artisan bread to test drive. Your customers will love you for it.