A SELF-TAUGHT baker has had his speciality loaves recognised by a panel of renowned judges.
Lucas Hogg, 30, of Peace and Loaf Bakehouse, Barrow, was runner-up in the Real Bread category at the prestigious Tiptree World Bread Awards, held earlier this week in Hyde Park, London.
Mr Hogg's signature English wholemeal spelt was also awarded a gold certificate by judges, despite being almost a day old when they got to taste it.
Mr Hogg, who runs the bakery alongside Caroline Davis, 34 said: "We worked really hard for this and it is nice to be recognised.
"Last year we got a silver certificate so to get a top award this time is just amazing.
"This is only the second time we entered and you either take your bread to London or post it like we did.
"We sent ours special delivery so by the time it got there it was almost a day old so to still get a gold is amazing."
Hosted by Stephen Hallam, master baker and managing director of Dickinson & Morris, the self-proclaimed home of the pork pie, more than 600 bakers entered the Real Bread category.
Flavour, variety and quality of ingredients and how local the product is were all factors which the panel took into consideration.
The Barrow Market bakery's winning wholemeal loaf scored highly with judges who included the Great British Bake Off's Frances Quinn, Colin Reese, Master of the Worshipful Company of Bakers and Andrew Whitley, The Real Bread Campaign's founder.
In the panel's notes they described the Barrow baker's entry as a "beautiful looking loaf" which "tasted as good as it looked".
The entrepreneur was keen to thank Heron Corn Mill in Milnthorpe, which have worked with Peace and Loaf since their beginning.
Host Mr Hallam said the field had been "more competitive than ever".
The Tiptree World Bread Awards were launched in January 2013 and entries have more than doubled since its inception.
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