Report of the Committee on Night Baking.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Labour and National Service. Committee on Night Baking.
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee on Night Baking. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/96 (page 29)
    reorganisation of premises would often be necessary to accommodate the plant. Apart from the cost of doing this at the present time, it might be difficult to acquire extra space or to obtain the necessary permits to build the additional accommodation for housing the refrigerator. While some bakers might be able to overcome these problems, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that at the present time a heavy burden would be placed on most bakers and more particularly the small men if they had to solve the problem by refrigeration. Moreover, having regard to the fact that the Unions agree to two hours of preliminary work before 6 a.m. the installation of refrigeration would not save an enormous amount of time, although admittedly it would be of great help with the very early morning goods production. In short, while we do not decry or underestimate the potentialities of refrigeration, we do not think it offers the prospect of an early or widespread solution of night baking. AIR CONDITIONING 72. Much the same considerations apply to air conditioning. Adequate air conditioned storage, involving regulation of temperature and humidity, undoubtedly helps to keep goods fresh for a much longer period than would otherwise be the case. The Unions’ submission was that air conditioning would facilitate the baking of bread one day for sale on the next. This system has the advantage that it applies to bread as well as to rolls and morning goods and the Unions suggested that the best results were to be obtained by the combination of air conditioning and refrigeration. Mr. Spencer agreed that air conditioning had considerable value ; but the Scottish employers thought it encouraged bacterial growth. We think it is of value but again it may involve considerable capital outlay and it may mean the provision of extra storage space. It is a development which, in our view, is still in an experimental stage and our conclusion on its value as a solution to the night baking problem is the same as for refrigeration. 3 THE ‘‘ NO-TIME’” DOUGH 73. The “no-time’’ dough was also suggested by the Unions as assisting in the solution of the problem by speeding up the processes of bread produc- tion. ‘We have mentioned in paragraph 45 above this process which reduces the period of bulk fermentation from 3 or 4 hours to a few minutes. This undoubtedly is a considerable time-saver and would help to advance the hour by which new bread would appear in the shops given a 6 a.m. start. The employers told us that it reduces the quality of the bread and adds about 3s. per sack to the cost. Our view is that the “no-time” dough would certainly prove a great time-saver and if night baking were abolished, we think that its use would become much more widespread. Possibly the employers do not give sufficient weight to it as yet. Nonetheless, we cannot think that the problem of night baking can be solved solely by a device such as this and we must content ourselves by saying that it might solve some of the difficulties of abolition but only at a greater cost. THE COMMITTEE’S VIEW ON THE VALUE AND PRACTICABILITY OF TECHNOLOGICAL METHODS AS A SOLUTION 74. To sum up. In varying degrees all these devices have a contribution to make to solving the problem and particularly to the morning rolls problem. Moreover, necessity is the mother of invention and no doubt the prohibition of night work would stimulate the development of these or other technical devices. But most of them are too elaborate and expensive for us to base any recommendations on the assumption that they can be generally adopted, and we would have grave hesitation about recommending total abolition of night work solely on these grounds. 29