Families bake out of the recession

UK families are ditching the ready made meals in favour of food cooked from scratch.

In an attempt to bake their way through the recession, families are looking for cheap ways to feed themselves, and old fashioned baking is making a come back.

Breadmakers, baking tins and home made cakes are up by 26 per cent, with one in ten parents using cooking as a cheap way to keep kids occupied during the summer holidays.

The findings come in a nationwide survey by flour producer Allinson.

Marketing manager, Vanessa Day-English from Allinson Flour, said: “These findings reinforce what we suspected – that there has been a surge in interest in back to basics tasks such as home baking during the credit crunch.

“The number of visitors to the specialist bakingmad.com website, which shows people how to get into baking and how easy it can be, has virtually doubled in the last year. People are now constantly looking at ways to save money and baking at home is just one way to do that. People also rediscover the fact that they enjoy doing it.

“We were curious to find out more about people’s behaviour during the credit crunch as this is a great opportunity to get them back into traditional activities such as baking.”

As well as cooking, old appliances were being dusted off with families raiding cupboards for the sandwich maker and bread maker.

The slow cooker has stormed back into popularity, along with smoothie makers, deep fat fryers and fondue sets.