Two weeks ago, I made my way up to Peterborough for the Best Baguette UK competition, organised by Beam Baking and Foricher. I went as a spectator, but left having tried new equipment, met some brilliant people from across the industry, and watched my own mentor compete on one of the UK’s most respected baking stages.

The Competition

The Best Baguette UK isn’t a hobbyist event. These are professional bakers, artisan bakeries, and institution-trained chefs competing on a single, deceptively demanding product: the baguette. Crust. Crumb. Flavour. Technique. Everything is judged. Nothing is hidden.

The standard in the room was high. You could feel it the moment you walked in.

The Winners

Two names stood out among the award winners: Authentic Bakery, who took home a prize on the day, and Harrods whose baker also walked away with an award.

But the most meaningful moment for me was watching Stephan, my mentor from Le Cordon Bleu, compete. Seeing someone whose standards you’ve absorbed in your own kitchen stand at that level is a different kind of inspiration. It doesn’t just motivate you , it recalibrates what you think is possible.

Hands On with Beam’s New Machines

One of the highlights of the day was getting the chance to try out Beam Baking’s newest equipment. There’s something instructive about feeling how a machine handles dough the resistance, the rhythm, the way good engineering either respects the bread or fights it. These machines respected it.

For anyone working in production baking, or even just curious about where the technology is heading, it was worth the trip to Peterborough on its own.

The People

What I didn’t expect was how much of the day would be spent in conversation. The baking industry, when gathered in one room, is surprisingly open, people sharing techniques, opinions, frustrations, ambitions. We met bakers, millers, and industry folk from across the UK, and those conversations were as nourishing as anything else on the day.

Why This Matters

The UK bread scene is often underestimated. Events like this prove otherwise. The obsession with fermentation, shaping, and sourcing, the quiet seriousness of bakers who don’t need applause to do their best work. it’s all here.

I left Peterborough with a notebook full of observations, a renewed respect for the baguette, and a strong urge to get back to my own kitchen.

More on that soon.