“While white bread consumption has recently reduced in Turkey, especially brown bread consumption has rapidly increased. Consumption of variety bread has increased depending on increase of income level, age and education level. In addition to white bread, mostly consumed variety bread types are wholewheat bread, rye bread, corn bread, Trabzon bread, whole grain bread, sandwich loaf according to the consumption amount.”

Hakan AKBAŞ  Food Engineer Untad Ekmek Bread is a staple food consumed fondly without considering rich-poor, young-old for centuries. Labor, elbow grease starting from seed to produce bread and continuing with harvest in field has made it a value out of just a foodstuff. Crop, especially wheat and bread is a part of lives of Anatolian people, even chill them to the bone. Bread is a culture dating back to centuries. Wheat is grinded in stone mill and floured. Flour meets water in hands of Anatolian women. It kneaded with love, kept with patient and matured. As Rumi said; “You cannot run away from fire, when you are mature, sophisticated, you find yourself at the seat of honor as cooked bread. You are hosted like saint, brothers adopt you when the table is set, while you think you help the spirit, you fall for spirit.” Bread is not alive, but it makes people alive, becomes spirit. Bread is mentioned in many idioms, stories and proverbs.

Thus, consumption of bread which is loved in Turkey that much and believed to be holy is much higher than other countries of the world. Turkey ranks the first places in the world in terms of bread consumption. With 199,6 kilogram bread consumption per capita according to the report of year 2006, Turkey entered the Guinness World’s Records Book with the highest bread consumption rate.

According to the results of the research titled “Bread Waste in Turkey” conducted by Turkish Grain Board (TMO), daily 25.295 tones, yearly 9,2 million tones of bread is produced in Turkey.

VARIETY BREAD STATUS IN TURKEY While white bread consumption has recently reduced in Turkey, especially brown bread consumption has rapidly increased. Consumption of variety bread has increased depending on increase of income level, age and education level. According to a research, in addition to white bread, mostly consumed variety bread types are wholewheat bread, rye bread, corn bread, Trabzon bread, whole grain bread, sandwich loaf according to the consumption amount.

When viewing the production status of white bread and variety bread in Turkey, results are as the graphic below.

While there is no significant change in bakery types used between 2008-2010, there is even a little increase in number of rotating, matador and tunnel bakery. Especially increase in matador bakeries depends on increase of variety bread production.

List of types of variety bread produced in Turkey is as follows according to production fields; • Public bread factories of municipalities • Industrial bakeries • National and local chain markets • Medium and small scale bakeries

Types of bread produced in such different fields varies in themselves in terms of form (size) and content, color, aroma.

As shown in above table, when we examine the bread market in Turkey, it is seen that production of industrial variety bread increased between 2008-2013 at a rate of 49,5 percent and had a share of about 239,4 million lira within 2013. It expected a 48,3 percent growth between 2013-2018.

PROBLEMS IN VARIETY BREAD INDUSTRY In variety bread industry, most of raw materials, enzymes, emulgators, preservatives, dough developers and such similar materials used in industrial bakeries are imported, so the industry has become foreign-dependent. Therefore, changes in foreign exchange affect costs. In addition, difficulties in supply of such materials affect the quality of bread.

One of the most important problems is wheat flour which has the most of the shares as rate. High-protein, nutritious flour is used in production of variety bread. Wheat is originated from Mesopotamia and Anatolia. However, nutritious flour cannot be supplied from wheats produced in Turkey. For sustainable quality flour supply, it is required to work with big mills importing wheat in an amount to be adequate until the next harvest period from time to time. These mills provides bakeries with input in desired quality by blending high quality wheats imported from abroad with medium-level wheat bought from Turkey.

Just like all industries, lack of qualified employee also shows itself in this industry. In most of the bakeries, dough producers are still raised by master-apprentice relationship. This causes quality losses and cost increases due to the fact that raw materials are not handled appropriately. Bakery vocational high schools should be opened in order to meet the need for mid-level qualified personnel for bakery industry. Furthermore, universities should open research and development centers on bakery just like private sector. In these centers, both bakeries should be given training, and supported in terms of necessary analyzes in bakery products.

Despite of majority of producers producing bakery machinery and equipment in Turkey, purchase of many industrial machinery, equipment and technology from abroad is another issue. Since investment costs are high, profit margin is low, production is profitable in a certain area, logistics expenses increase out of a specific circle, profit rate decreases, thus being another problem. One of the reasons restricting the marketing and sales of such products is short shelf life of general bakery products.

When considering variety bread in terms of nutrition, we can mention about this as follows. We see that consumers do not have adequate information about brown bread and other bread types. Awareness level of consumers should be developed especially about wholewheat (brown), grain bread, dark bread and other bread types. Especially the young generation is not conscious; it is observed that middle-aged and old people consume such products with recommendation of their doctor due to digestion diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, tension and similar diseases.

With increase of education level, demand for these products also increase. This means regular diet habits increase as education level increases. Of course this is not the only reason; some reasons such as income level, age, accessibility to products, taste of different regions affect the interest in such products. In the result research after “Campaign for Prevention of Bread Waste” started by Turkish Grain Board (TMO) on 17 January 2013, it was detected that consumption of dark bread increased at a rate of 93 percent, wholewheat bread increased at a rate of 283 percent.

When bread such as dark bread, wholewheat bread, brown bread, rye bread, grain bread etc. is produced with true production techniques and under appropriate hygiene conditions, fundamental foodstuff required for body is obtained. True nutrition habits will contribute to raising more healthy generations.

With development of technology, the time spent for eating meal reduces. We see that handled food production techniques is gradually increasing and diversifying, and trend to refined food has increased. In cities, people over-weight people with constipation and cardiovascular diseases due to hypokinesia and overeating, and increase of fast food consumption have started to consume brown bread.

Ensuring regular diet habits, and consuming fiber-rich products are very important to prevent colon cancer, intestinal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, cholesterol problems. It is stated in researches that fiber-rich foods accelerate digestion, prevents cancer by removing crests and deformations to be found in large intestine on inner wall synthesis.

Supporting industrial bakery and making it a government policy is fundamental for national economy. In the past, everyone who wanted to open a bakery was given license without training. Thus, many large and small bakeries were opened. In region where there are many bakeries according to population, bakeries provide services far below their capacities; so there is always a competition environment among bakers. It is decreased due to available raw materials, operational expenditures and other input costs. As a result, the quality of final product is low. Bakeries operating far below their capacities cause to throw national wealth around. Hygiene conditions in some small bakeries cannot reach to desired level.

Establishment of a small or middle scale industrial bakery by merging of several small scale bakeries, true production applications under the surveillance of an experienced technical personnel and production of products under adequate hygiene conditions is highly important for public health.

Industrial bakers will make a huge contribution to prevention of waste. The areas where bread waste is high are bakeries consisting 62,1 percent of total bread waste. This percentage means 3 million bread waste per day (according to TMO 2013 research results). Slicing bread, prolonging its life, bringing package roll-type bread in equal portion will contribute to preventing the majority part of this waste.

With packaged variety bread, hygiene conditions are met, shelf life increases, and waste is prevented due to slicing. Since there are much more vitamins, minerals, protein and carbon hydrates necessary for body in variety bread, more healthy, cleaner bread will be offered to consumers compared to standard bread.