Vince Curtis was a businessman before he was a baker, and that set of skills was a vital ingredient in him being able to identify imaginative ways of addressing a growing apprenticeship void in the industry.
The community-minded Bakers Delight franchisee, a key figure in the development of Kyabram’s Community Bank, is continuing to use his business acumen to ensure the Albion Arcade bakery is able to keep step with the demands of the growing population.
That growth, however, is not translating to a wider pool of apprentice bakery candidates, and Mr Curtis, and his wife, Liza, have resorted to alternate methods to fill their roster of workers.
The pair are not scared to invest in their workforce; in fact, their commitment to ensuring they can meet the demand of customers has stretched to the sponsorship of three overseas workers — along with the introduction of new technology to the product preparation process.
While Mr Curtis and his team of bakers are still emptying trays of bread loaves and carefully measuring the mixture and ingredients of their scones, a machine is now chiefly responsible for the initial preparation of dough for the bakery’s bread and bun production.
Ciberpan is a fitting name for the machine that takes up a significant portion of the recently renovated bakery’s production area, requiring the bakery team to simply place the dough into a hopper and watch as the new technology “does it thing’’.
Mr Curtis said it was a decision he made based on the fact it was so difficult to find staff.
“We struggle to get bakers,” he said.
“I have two guys from India we are sponsoring for permanent residency. One has been with us for two years and the other for three.
“When we advertise we receive virtually zero credible applications.”
He explained that the bakery team needed at least three staff — along with him — working every day to meet demand.
It forced him to go down the automation road, and only four weeks ago the game-changing Ciberpan machinery arrived at the business.
The Spanish-made machine has been available for only 12 months and only two Bakers Delight franchises in Victoria have one.
For Mr Curtis it is like having a highly effective and qualified baker join the team, one who works without getting tired, is exact in his product preparation and has few of the hang-ups associated with your everyday employee.
The bakery owner does admit, however, he much prefers humans and the interaction they provide in the demanding industry that is baking.
“I’ve been looking at options for two or three years, but nothing ever ticked all the boxes. Ciberpan does,” he said.
The machine divides the dough, stores and moulds it, then produces rolls and loaves ready for the provers and oven.
Bread-based products are 90 per cent of the business in Kyabram.
The new addition to the team will take the term “working yourself to death’’ off the table, although a recent experience had Mr Curtis contemplating the famous saying.
He started noticing a shortness of breath and other symptoms at the start of this year and after medical advice underwent a triple bypass operation in February.
It has only been in the past week or so that he has returned to the full rotation of the business, working his way back to his regular six- or seven-day shift load.
He did admit one of the most significant outcomes of the operation was that he was now 15kg lighter and was much more appreciative of what life offered on a daily basis.
Mr Curtis came into the baking industry more than two decades ago, after 10 years as a funeral director, a career he began straight out of college where he obtained a Bachelor of Economics degree.
“I’d done funeral directing for 10 years when Liza and I were married,” he said.
“We travelled around Australia for six months and were planning to head overseas when her father (Kyabram and Girgarre sporting legend Maurice Varcoe) got sick.
“Around that same time we wandered down to our local Bakers Delight at Prahran, which happened to be owned by another Girgarre person — Mick Kelliher.
“We got talking and discovered Bakers Delight had locked on to Kyabram, and followed the process through to open in late 2002.”
Bakers Delight has a 43-year history in Australia and Mr Curtis said a career in the industry represented a guaranteed future.
His own economics background and the information technology qualifications of his wife made for a solid back end of the business, but they still needed to spend four months learning the front end operation of a bakery.
It is a skill set they hope to pass on to the next generation.
Mr Curtis said in his 21-year stint at Kyabram, four or five of his apprentices had gone through to completion of their apprenticeship, which was now very much a competency-based qualification.
“The apprenticeship is as fast as people want it to be. It is competency based,” he said.
“You could do it in two years.”
Mr Curtis explained how proud he was of his current team of “Ninja” (Maninder), “Pav’’ (Parvinder), Luying and the latest acquisition, Julian Cricelli.
“There is always opportunity for people to get into this business,” he said.
“Having the right sort of person apply for an apprenticeship is like winning Tattslotto.”
And for those put off by the traditional 1am starts, that is all behind the modern baker.
“All the equipment we have now allows them to start at 4am. Our investment into equipment has helped to make the job more appealing,” Mr Curtis said.
“It is a long way from when we first started, when we worked from 1am until 9am, then had bacon and eggs and a beer.”