Vitebsk region bakes bread and bakery products from the 2015 harvest flour
From grain to counter. Residents of the country's northern region are already enjoying baked goods made from the 2015 harvest flour. Immediately after the harvest, this was simply impossible due to the specifics of production. Now, millers and bakers have replaced the combine operators. They have actively engaged in processing the harvest, which in the Vitebsk region in 2015 broke all records.
Bread on the table is a throne. No bread, and the table is a plank. Tatyana Rustikova has adhered to this principle for 30 years.
Tatyana Rustikova, finished product controller at the Vitebsk bakery:
Receiving flour from the fresh harvest, we start working as if for the first time. And we try, putting all our soul into it, to produce such high-quality loaves.
Here they are – the freshest loaves. Hot, aromatic. It's a pity the camera cannot convey this smell. Now we are stacking them, and very soon, in just a couple of hours, they will appear on store shelves.
As soon as an order comes in, the aromatic products are immediately sent to retail outlets. Apparently, people are really eager to taste the fresh bread of 2015.
Wheat flour has been supplied to the Vitebsk bakery for just over a week. It is used to make the first cakes, bagels, loaves, and buns. However, with rye flour (used for black bread), the grain processing plant is just beginning to work. And this is not due to slowness – the technology did not allow for the processing of rye ears earlier.
Maria Ralovich, Deputy Director for Production at the Vitebsk Grain Processing Plant:
The grain goes through several stages of maturation. We bring it from the field, of course, already ripe. But every agronomist knows perfectly well that the grain still needs to lie in the granaries, in the barns, and ripen further. This is called grain maturation. This period lasts about a month or two. Everything depends on the quality of the grain. And only after that do we start using it.
Olga Pavlyuchenko, Chief Technologist at Vitebsk Bakery:
Flour, if it is freshly milled and you need to get a product from it, results in a sticky crumb and a shapeless form. Therefore, when receiving grain, and not always even from fresh milling, it is imperative that when we receive flour, we must let it rest at our enterprise for seven days.
By the way, in 2015, the granaries of the northern region of the country were filled by agrarians as never before.
For the first time in 30 years, more than 1 million 400 thousand tons of grain were harvested in the Vitebsk region.