Jason and Leanne Heaven of Heaven's Bakery were part of the Napier team who won a top bakery award at the National Baking Awards in Auckland. Photo / Warren Buckland.
Jason and Leanne Heaven of Heaven's Bakery were part of the Napier team who won a top bakery award at the National Baking Awards in Auckland. Photo / Warren Buckland.
Georgia May
Napier based Heavens Bakery has taken out the nation's top baking prize for the ninth time in a row.
The Baking Industry Association of New Zealand judged Heaven's Bakery as the country's best bakery in a 12-item competition.
The Bakery of the Year competition was held at the BIANZ Feature stand at Fine Food NZ in Auckland on Monday evening.
In taking out the competition, the bakery received the highest score across the 12 sections and 4 categories on the midwinter Christmas-themed competition.
Owner Jason Heaven said regardless how many times they've won, the feeling of ecstasy still remained the same.
Three generations of the Heaven family have contributed to winning New Zealand's Bakery of the Year award nine times. Photo / Supplied
"This is the ninth time we've taken the prize out, that's expanding over three generations. A lot of it was done by my son Sam Heaven, he's a third-generation Heaven, so it felt really good," he said.
"There was a lot of hard work done last week and a lot of very short sleeps, but it paid off and we were just over the moon with the result and we couldn't be more pleased."
Heaven's parents started the bakery in Taradale in 1974, then he began his apprenticeship in 1986.
"My dad's been baking for probably 50 plus years - maybe even more than that."
The family business is still going strong in Kennedy Rd, Marewa, with Heaven's son, Sam, working at the bakery for the past year-and-a-half as an apprentice.
"He loves it because he was brought up like me. He got up in the early hours of the morning and started coming to work with me."
Heaven said his son was responsible for taking out the top award because he thought outside the box and used his creative streak.
"Sam came up with the idea of using some wacky native herb that he put in the croissants and of course the judges had never heard of it, so they actually had to go and research it and find out what it was.
"It's called horopito, a native New Zealand herb. In the past people had to forage for it and now they're actually producing it."
About 150 people attended the awards, which were held at Waipuna Lodge in Auckland.
"It was a really special evening, they gave out the awards and then presented Baker of the Year," Jason Heaven said.
"It's a lot of work and you just hope you're doing what the judges are looking for. We've done it multiple times of course, but it's still an amazing feeling to win.
"The whole family got involved, my wife and son did all the creative stuff, it was just really special to have three generations involved."
