Food Product Quality Cluster chooses Latvia’s best young baker of 2019!

The contest among students of Latvian professional education institutions   “Young baker 2019” (“Jaunais Maiznieks 2019”) concluded on November 2019. Justīne Jumīte, a student of Jelgava Crafts Secondary School, was recognized its winner.

The contest was organized by the Food Product Quality Cluster and the Latvian Federation of Food Companies in cooperation with the Latvian Bakers’ Association and Riga Technical School of Tourism and Creative Industry. It was supported by AS “Rīgas Dzirnavnieks”, which provided raw materials, and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Union.

The baking of the traditional Latvian rye bread is among the longest and most complicated bread making technologies worldwide and as a traditional national cultural value is included in the Latvian Culture Canon. The aim of the contest was to preserve and promote baker’s profession in order not to lose this important symbol of Latvian identity as well as to develop students’ professional skills and creative thinking towards innovations. The contestant had to bake a bread for a modern consumer using natural ingredients.

Such contests enable future bakers to show their creative approach, acquired skills and knowledge in practice, as well as to accumulate their experience and improve their qualification. To be a baker means not only to make bread, but also to preserve and maintain Latvian traditions of baking and to give a contribution to these traditions, thus promoting one of the world’s oldest crafts – that of baker .

12 Students of professional education institutions aged 17-23 participated in the contest. The future bakers represented Riga Technical School of Tourism and Creative Industry, Valmiera Technical College, as well as Jelgava Crafts Secondary School, Ogre Technical College and Kuldīga College of Technologies and Tourism.