Membres

Lesaffre : Pekarijada

Le 03/04/2018

Candidate for the Grand Prix 2018 / Innovation

Pekarijada“ is the first and the only competition of professional and young bakers in Serbia. It was launched with the aim of recognising and highlighting the best professional, as well as young bakers still in school. It is a unique opportunity and the sole event in the baking industry that gathers the best bakers of Serbia and enables them to gain valuable experience and express their talent, skills and abilities to Serbia and share them with their colleagues. Furthermore, Pekarijada is a place gathering prominent individuals from the profession, as selection jury members are university professors, directors of production facilities, top technologists, proven authorities of the baking craft. Contestants compete in 5 categories – saint’s day cake, break, burek, croissant, and Easter buns, with monetary awards for professionals and a job for the best junior!

We supported Pekarijada with the marketing and PR campaign that lasted two and a half months. It was followed by pre-selections in all 5 categories, and then semi-finals and finals of the competition. Every Friday, an average of 15 baking professionals across Serbia competed in the Baking Center. The competition was completed with the finals in the Burek category, the most attractive category of Pekarijada. The award ceremony is planned for April 24, in the Madlenianum Opera House. In addition to contestants, prominent individuals from the baking industry and media reps are invited to the ceremony, where we will announce the best bakers of Serbia after a music and acting performance.

Members of the organisational board, consisting of Lesaffre managers, worked on Pekarijada project, with strong support of external associates, suppliers, media outlets and agencies engaged on the project. We are very proud of the fact that the relevance of this competition is recognised by other companies in the market, and that we won friends of Pekarijada, including Dijamant from Zrenjanin, France’s Bongard and Sadex, Pobeda plus from Niš and Bibli from Mladenovac. Somboled, Pekara AS, Jablanica and Perfom supported Pekarijada with free products and expert support.

This year’s Pekarijada resulted in nearly 200 applications in all 5 categories. We also gathered the online community with more than 12,000 Facebook followers and we are exceptionally proud of managing to achieve the primary objective – enriching and facilitating the baking industry in Serbia. More than 20 selection jury members contributed to the validity of the competition with their know-how and objectivity. Furthermore, we are highly proud of that fact that media crews were glad to be guests of our Baking Center and thus helped present Pekarijada to the general public. Today, Pekarijada is famous as a serious and sole organised baking event in Serbia, which we consider a huge success, not only of our company, but also of the baking industry in general.