Limerick Youth Service's bakery team tastes success

TRAINEES with Limerick Youth Service took a prestigious bakery competition in the UK by storm winning five gold medals. 

Young members of the local youth service travelled to Alton Towers, near Stoke-on-Trent to participate in the Alliance of Bakery Students and Trainees (ABST) annual conference. 

The bakery team collected an impressive 11 medals including five golds at the ABST conference in what has been described as an “historic and very successful weekend,” by Paul O’Brien, baking instructor at the service.  

“The trainees should be extremely proud as they represented their families, friends, country and themselves with pride. 

“They went above and beyond in preparing for this tournament and deserve all the success they get,” added a very proud Paul.

Winners on the day included trainee Albert Dowie who took first prize in the Wright’s Trophy with Jordan Walsh winning the Novices Cup, Conor Cantillion taking home the top prize for his bread loaf, Niamh McCarthy collecting gold in the best loaf category and Roxana Szabo winning first prize in the 3D dough art display for the second successive year.  

Meanwhile Stacey McCarthy travelled home with three medals finishing runner-up in the highly competitive British society of baking trophy among two other third place finishes.  

After describing the weekend as “simply unbelievable”, bakery tutor Paul took time to congratulate his winning team. 

“The Limerick Youth Service teams have been very successful over the years, growing year by year,” he said. 

In 2010, LYS became affiliated with the Alliance of Bakery Students and Trainees and each year the ABST host the conference which involves students and trainees from across the UK and Ireland.

Supported by the Limerick Clare Educational Training Board, the bakery project is located at LYS’ community training centre and is a FDQ Level 2 accredited course. 

The course targets young people between the age of 16-21, who have for a number of reasons may have left school early. The project is designed to prepare a young person to start a career in the baking industry.