A not-so sweet future

A star of the BBC’s cookery programme ‘The Sweet Makers’ is warning that Britain is in danger of losing the confectionery skills that have satisfied the nation’s sweet tooth for generations.

Andy Baxendale, who has 23 years’ experience in confectionery including roles at Blackburn-based businesses Stockleys Sweets and Glisten, is calling on the government to set up a national academy of sweets, to protect the industry and teach a new generation the art.

The 51-year-old, who was also a former product development manager for Chewits, is now a consultant for firms across the UK. He also continues to make and create his own sweets, including Lancashire Mint Cake to rival the Kendal variety and bacon flavoured fudge!

However, he fears that without support the country’s sweet-making skills will disappear for ever.

Andy is one of the TV team of onscreen confectioners entertaining and informing BBC2 viewers in The Sweet Makers. They recreated the treats of the past, from a Tudor sugar banquet to giant Easter eggs, and discovered the roots of our national sweet tooth through Georgian and Victorian times.

Andy says the show has highlighted the UK’s proud tradition of sweet making but reveals that the people with the skills to create the nation’s favourites are disappearing.

And he says that without help, in future more and more of our sweet treats will come from Germany, the global power in the industry.

He told Lancashire Business View : “As the bigger companies have grown and consolidated a lot of sugar boilers have disappeared. It is a skill we are losing and it is a real shame.

“Automation hasn’t helped either and we now have a real shortage of confectioners in the UK.

“Germany has a national confectionery school with a training course that leads to an actual qualification. It prides itself on being the world’s most prestigious training establishment for the confectionery industry.

“I’d like to see something similar set up here, the creation of a National Academy of Sweets.”

Germany is the world’s number one exporter of sweets and half the confectionery produced there is sold abroad, whilst the UK sits 11th in the global export table just ahead of Colombia.

A fuller version of this story can be found in the current issue of Lancashire Business View