Meet bread winner David Nizi

A year ago artisan baker David Nizi brought his passion for bread to Hereford, opening a small, but increasingly popular bakery on St Owens Street, attracting an enthusiastic and appreciate market for his delicious creations. Though he's not been to his native country for several years, it is his Italian heritage that led him to bread. "Like every Italian I learned to cook from my family because that's how you're brought up. And through that I discovered that baking was my passion, baking and bread. Alongside his range of bread, David also produces a selection of Viennoiserie - croissants, pains au chocolat, perfect pastries of all sorts - that you'd expect to find emerging from a French boulangerie, not from a man whose culinary roots are based in a place where you'll be hard pressed to find a pastry or indeed much of anything to eat before noon, but David has given his pastries a distinctive twist. "I started the business last year, and I've lived in the UK for six years now, and during that time I was able to translate my Italian food background into a business with British appeal," says David, who likens bread to language in the nuanced differences between countries. "Bread is like words, words change meaning and it's the same for food. Obviously there's an Italian kind of attitude and mission behind the philosophy and ingredients but at the same time I always want to give it a British twist. "Every single recipe I can get some of my background into, and every time it's new, which is so exciting for me," David explains. "My food is different - from the suppliers I use to the size of the pastries - even the size of my croissants is different. "I have been doing this for a long time now, and every day is different. Every single time you enter the bakery you never know until the end how the bread will turn out. That keeps me interested - it's magic. "There's no better feeling than making a loaf. It's why I opened the bakery rather than going into an industrial unit. It's why I wanted something so small. Customers come into my bakery. I wanted to share the experience with them.If you have a wall you lose this reward. Knock it down and it's priceless. There are no tricks or frills." One of the main things that comes from this enterprise is that sense that people are not just buying a loaf. It's like being part of the process, not just about making bread." From Nizi sourdough to a baguette de tradition Francaise, from a granary loaf to raisin and rosemary sourdough, this is the place to fall in love with bread. One of his most popular - and award-winning loaves - was created in response to demand. David has a close relationship with his customers and his hugely poplar buckwheat bread was created in response to customers asking for a bread that was wheat free. "So I started making these loaves and the final recipe is an evolution of feed back from customers . We created it for them." He is particularly thrilled that this is the loaf that recently won him a major bread industry award, the Tiptree World Bread Award for gluten-free bread. Though David emphasises that it is not suitable for coeliacs due to cross-contamination in the bakery. "And I never even made this bread when I started the business"! Alongside the bread is David's range of Viennoiserie, among them his stunningly different pains au chocolat, poached pear Danish, mocha croissant, rhubarb Danish and strawberry, basil and balsamic Danish ... with new products introduced regularly. My main aim is to deliver a product as fresh as possible and that's why there are probably two metres between the oven and the till. He adds that only if he can find a way to maintain this approach, 'keeping this freshness' will he expand his bakery. "If I can't I won't". "One of the main aims in my business plan was sustainability. It's important to concentrate on that rather than thinking always about growing, growing, growing. If you want to work with organic ingredients, you have to grow organically. When you work with bread, you're working with life, and how you feel can affect the outcome. "If I feel tired, my bread will look tired. And if I'm not happy with my bread I don't sell it." David has recently been joined in the baker by Michael Engler: "Everything is smoother and quicker with two," he says. But he readily admits that he has not achieved his success single-handed. A baker's life, he explains, is not like other people's: "You are like an owl." (He works either from midnight or 2am until 2pm or 5pm), and none of it would be possible without his wife, Jane, and their children, Hadrian and Daphne. "I couldn't do anything at all without her," he says. "I would have shut within two weeks if it wasn't for her."