Blog Expert Seminar on Baking and Pastry Arts

The current market situation in the baking and confectionery industries, information on grain harvests and quality, forecasts of flour and bakery product prices, as well as savings in transportation, were topics of an expert seminar held during the opening day of the 40th anniversary of the Země živitelka exhibition, attended by bakers, pastry chefs, and representatives of supplier and customer industries.

From the seminar, it emerged, among other things, the necessity of investing in mechanization and automation technologies, increasing productivity, and marketing. "Czech bakers, pastry chefs, and other food producers do honest craftsmanship. They can prepare, superbly decorate, and produce their goods, but don’t always market them well," said Dušan Pelikán from Brno Exhibition Center, who spoke about utilizing exhibitions and trade fairs for marketing purposes. "Participation in a fair provides an opportunity to compare yourself with competitors, discover new technologies, expand your customer base, and increase your company's competitiveness."

Václav Král from MOTOR JIKOV Strojírenská a.s. presented at the seminar the options for reducing transportation costs through the use of vehicles powered by compressed natural gas, known by the acronym CNG.

Ing. Václav Král introduced the economic benefits of using CNG in transportation

“Baking and confectionery entities commonly use natural gas for heating and oven operation, but not everyone knows it can be very effectively used in transportation when compressed. Currently, with gasoline prices around 36.7 CZK per liter, CNG costs about 26 CZK/kg at a public station, and with a private refueling system, approximately 22 CZK/kg. To illustrate, if we invest 1000 CZK in fuel, we can typically travel about 500–550 km on gasoline or diesel, 700 km on LPG, and up to 1200 km on natural gas. CNG can thus save us up to 50% of our fuel costs,” explained Václav Král about the advantages of CNG. He added that MOTOR JIKOV currently supplies a complete range of refueling stations and filling systems, from which users can choose depending on fleet size and mileage.

Within the seminar program organized by the Business Association of Bakers and Pastry Chefs in the Czech Republic in partnership with ZEELANDIA, spol. s r.o. Malšice, an exhibition of machinery, raw materials, and services took place in halls Z and T, along with a showcase of regional foods and harvest festival pie samples.