About the Federation of Bakers

Representing The UK Bread Industry

The Federation of Bakers represents the interests of the UK’s largest baking companies who manufacture sliced and wrapped bread, bakery snacks and other bread products. It is a £5 billion industry at retail sales value employing 64,000 people supplying the majority of the nation’s bread. The Federation has 10 member companies running 31 bakeries in the United Kingdom.

Who We Are

The Federation of Bakers (FOB) is the trade association representing the largest bakeries in the United Kingdom who produce sliced and wrapped bread, bakery snacks and other bread products.  It is a £5 billion industry at retail sales value, employing around 64,000 people, supplying over 80% of the nation’s bread.

What We Do

The Federation of Bakers strives to deliver professional services to our members and other users of our services to an excellent standard and in genuine partnership with all our stakeholders; whether this is in the provision of advice, training or leadership in health and safety, or in our representational role lobbying on technical issues or promoting the consumption of bread through our PR work. The way we work is embodied in our core values.

Core Values

The Federation of Bakers believes that it should seek to exceed our stakeholders’ expectations of the organisation.

We will do this by:

  • Pursuing best practice in everything we do.
  • Taking the lead in all issues relating to the bread industry.
  • Being a repository of knowledge about and for the bread industry.
  • Developing our people to their full potential.

What we do and how we do it will accord to our core values of:

  • Excellence
  • Professionalism
  • Partnership.

Areas of Work

Our Philosophy

The Federation of Bakers recognises that it can be most effective through an efficient use of its resources and collaboration. This means that we work with those organisations best placed to make a difference on any particular issue where their position coincides with ours.

For example, UK industry-wide issues, such as employment legislation, we would work with the CBI; food industry-wide issues, such as nutrition labelling, we would work with the Food and Drink Federation (FDF). We would reserve to the FoB activity on those issues directly related to the bread industry, such as flour fortification, either in partnership with others or on our own.

Similarly we are able to focus our work on our core competencies by outsourcing much of the administrative management of the Federation to the FDF, such as our reception, building maintenance, finance and IT.

Our three key functions:

1. Representation

The Federation represents the interests of its members to make a real difference to their bottom lines.

We represent these interests by:

  • building the profile of the Federation as a dynamic forward thinking, professional and excellent organisation
  • generically promoting members products through creative PR using the positive and very powerful nutritional benefits of the nation’s staple food
  • sophisticated issues management to promote desired change and to defend against the undesired, and to position the Federation correctly in respect of all issues with which it is faced.

Examples of our work can be seen throughout this website. Our PR and communication work comprises trade activity that sees us regularly featured in the media with important things to say on issues affecting the food industry, and consumer activity that communicates the positive aspects of bread.

Recent key issues we have been dealing with include:

  • Salt reduction in bread
  • EU Food Regulations
  • Nutrition Labelling
  • Process Contaminants
  • Food Waste/WRAP
  • Sugar Reduction (in morning goods)
  • Mandatory Fortification of Flour with Folic Acid
  • Plastics.

2. Value Added Services

There are some very concrete things the Federation can and does provide better and cheaper than the members themselves:

  • Training – whenever the industry identifies a training need the Federation is able to deliver a cost effective solution. Most recently we have devised a course to explain the complex area of bread weights. In the past we have run courses on large-scale bread production, as well as a seminar on the dangers of and solutions to driver tiredness.
  • Health and Safety – the Federation leads the baking industry in the promotion of high standards of health and safety. Our Health and Safety Committee is continually developing a wide range of safety guidance notes on equipment, processes and management to make sure the working environment is safe for all of our Members’ employees.
  • Statistics – the aggregation of detailed market data provided by our members gives them a source of information unobtainable by commercial data providers.

3. Interaction

An often overlooked but very important function provided by trade associations is the ability to provide a neutral environment for industry representatives to discuss non-competitive issues affecting the industry.

We have a number of committees that meet regularly to consider all manner of current topics and provide a forum for developing a consensus of opinion to demonstrate a forward thinking and progressive industry to the outside world.  These include our Health and Safety Committee, Corporate Social Responsibility Working Group, Sustainability Working Group, Technical Panel and PR Committee as well as regular meetings of our Board.