At the 18th Annual APC/Crisco® National Pie Championships, held April 27-29 in Orlando, Bakers Square led the commercial bakery category with 30 wins for its pie entries. Legendary Baking took second place with 21 wins, and Harlan's Bakeries was third with 16 wins. All told, 23 bakeries claimed 136 awards in the commercial bakery division.
Commercial bakers competed in 25 flavor options, including apple, apple crumb, banana cream, berry, candy/cookie cream, cherry, chocolate cream, citrus, coconut cream, custard, key lime, nut, peach, peanut butter, pumpkin, California raisin, silk cream, tropical fruit, strawberry and best new product. They also competed in 12 flavors of no-sugar added pies. Competitors assigned their pie entries based on wholesale cost and size of the pie. Independent bakers with $1 million or less in annual pie sales were able to participate in a new division within the commercial bakers' competition.
The pies were judged by 195 pre-qualified volunteer chefs, bakers and assorted pie aficionados. APC/Crisco National Pie Championships awards are ribbons for the Commercial division.
The complete list of winners is available at www.piecouncil.org.