It’s gold for Noritoshi Shibuya and Hirokazu Asai from Japan at iba’s major baking competition in Munich, Germany. These two bakers are the winners of the iba-UIBC-CUP Bakers. This international competition, where the world’s best in this field compete against each other, takes place in Munich every three years at iba, the world’s leading trade fair for bakery, confectionery and snacks.

In total, teams of bakers from 12 countries took part in the iba-UIBC-CUP. The victors were honored during a ceremony on Monday September 14 at the trade fair.

Representatives from four of the countries competed against each other each day in teams of two. This included teams from Peru, France, the Netherlands, USA, China, Hungary, Spain, Croatia, Russia, Denmark, Japan, and Germany. The theme of this year’s competition was “circus,” according to which the competitors had to produce bread, party pastries, biscuits, Danish pastries, as well as a baked showpiece.

In the end, it was Noritoshi Shibuya and Hirokazu Asai who won with their baked masterpieces. They also won the special category of Best Biscuit.

In second place came Tim Boers and Kris Huysman from the Netherlands, who also won the category of Best Danish. Third place went to Baptiste Guery and Matthieu Schuller from France, also awarded the prize for the Best Bread category.

The prize for the best show piece of the competition was awarded to Roland Tukacs and Zoltan Tako from Hungary, who came in fourth place with the rest of the competitors.

The participants:

Germany: Felix Remmele, Marc Mundri

France: Baptiste Guery, Matthieu Schuller

The Netherlands: Tim Boers, Kris Huysman

USA: Katie Vanek, Ashley Nichols

Spain: Josep Pascual Aguilera, José Roldán Triviño

Croatia: Damir Kregar, Renata Kruhan

Russia: Anna Gribanova, Elena Ananina

Denmark: Eva Jorgensen, Dan Christensen

Japan: Noritoshi Shibuya, Hirokazu Asai

Peru: Roger Aponte Villanueva, Héctor Urrunaga Cosmopolis

China: Tang Jianbo, Liao Jinzhong

Hungary: Roland Tukacs, Zoltan Tako