Craft taste on an industrial scale: how in Vitebsk they bake bread awarded the State Quality Mark

How to produce well-known bread "Caravay Pridvinya" and whether it is possible to implement craft bakery on an industrial scale, journalists during a press tour of the Vitebsk region told in OJSC "Vitebskkhlebprom", the correspondent of sb.by.

The National Press Center, together with the State Committee for Standardization and the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, organized a press tour to introduce journalists to enterprises of the northern region, whose products were awarded the State Quality Mark.

One of the most famous products of JSC "Vitebskkhlebprom" - bread "Karavai Pridvinya", which in 2024 was awarded the State mark of quality. The flour product has become a brand of the region, which combines rich traditions of bakery.

- Our production is multifaceted, we produce almost all types of bakery and flour confectionery products. This is a rye-wheat, wheat group of breads, buttercakes, cakes and cakes, gingerbread, cookies – in short, everything that can be made from flour and other ingredients, said Tatyana Kovalenko, chief technologist of the enterprise.

Vitebskkhlebprom produces products at various sites, the association includes 10 plants, and each specializes in a separate type of product. In total, they produce more than 700 products. For nine months of this year, products worth eight million rubles were sold. At the end of last year, the figure reached nine million. The bar for this year is ten.

- Now we are developing new directions and technologies. Of the latest innovations in production are the so-called craft breads with high dough hydration and cold prolonged fermentation. This is what mini bakeries usually produce when bread is made with hands from wheat flour based on sourdough, semi-finished products. Thanks to this technology, bread is more useful, easier to absorb by the body, because under such conditions complex proteins are broken down in flour. Such bread is made without adding sugar, so it is very useful, tasty, and it also has a crispy crust, tender flesh, and besides, it does not stale for a long time. We collected all the best traditions and technologies for the production of craft bread and introduced them into our production, Tatiana Kovalenko informed.

The award, which was awarded to one of our products, put on us a great responsibility for the products. We are expanding the range, and the enterprise is developing dynamically, supports the social sphere - we have our own children's camp, hostel, as well as a subsidiary agricultural enterprise in the Vitebsk district, he stressed.