- October 6, 2025
With the first rays of morning light in the kitchen of the “Tsaghkunk Chef-House,” the sound of flour sifting was the first to be heard. The water — just warm enough to “wake up” the dough; the flour — whole grain; the sourdough — revived. Whole grain and the bread made from it brought together twelve school cooks from the Gegharkunik region: they had come to learn about whole grains, to listen, to exchange thoughts and experiences, and to experiment in practice.
The practical course “Technology of baking bread from wholegrain wheat” is an important part of the educational agenda of the School Feeding and Child Welfare Agency. “In Gegharkunik, Tavush, and Lori, bread from wholegrain wheat has already been included in the school menu; next, within the framework of WFP programmes, we plan to expand to Armavir, Kotayk, and Syunik,” says the Agency’s director, Satenik Mkrtchyan. “School kitchen staff must master the technological skills of baking bread from wholegrain wheat to ensure it comes out tasty and healthy. That is why we initiated such trainings and plan to conduct more.”
Ani Mkrtchyan, head of the training center at “Tsaghkunk Chef-House” and course instructor, explains that the methodology was deliberately chosen to be practical: baking bread under the same technological conditions as in schools — without proofing cabinets or expensive equipment — so that the result depends not on machines but on technological discipline. “As a result, the stereotype was broken that baking with whole grain is difficult and doesn’t always work. When the right method is followed — proper temperature, resting phases, repeated kneading and shaping — soft, well-structured bread can be baked in any oven.”
The Agency’s monitoring team played a decisive role in selecting participants. In Gegharkunik, although wholegrain bread had been introduced a year earlier, not all cooks managed to achieve soft and tasty results. Monitoring revealed recurring and predictable mistakes. The training aimed to provide systemic solutions to these typical errors and to ensure a stable, identical outcome everywhere — fresh, soft, delicious bread that wouldn’t stay long on a child’s plate.
“Whole grain is one of our strategic directions; it is a story that goes beyond bread,” says director Satenik Mkrtchyan. “We are introducing a culture of healthy diets in schools, and one of its key elements is wholegrain bread. As a result of these courses, schools will have specialists who are familiar with the entire process of bread baking and equipped with the necessary technological skills — and from their ovens will come proper, healthy bread.”
What is wholegrain flour, how it differs from white flour, how it affects health and — most importantly — why the dough cannot be made one day to be baked the next morning: the course combined theoretical and practical parts. First came the “what” and the “why,” then the “how.”
“Why did we decide the course should also include a theoretical part?” says Satenik Mkrtchyan. “Because the cook must understand not only ‘what to do,’ but also ‘why’ — so that they can confidently talk about the benefits of whole grain with both children and parents.”
Participants first learned about the health benefits and secrets of working with wholegrain flour, and then moved on to practice: correct water temperature → “waking up” the sourdough → initial mixing → short rest → repeated kneading → shaping → second rest → baking. At the work table and the oven stood cooks from Gavar, Vardenik, Tsovinar, Eranos… One tests the water’s warmth with his fingers, another sifts flour through the sieve. The dough is breathing; the air is filled with the smell of fresh bread. Whole grain is not just an ingredient. It is an attitude, a technology, a discipline, and, ultimately, part of school culture.
Participants noted down several key numbers that became real guarantees of flavor: for 1 kilogram of flour, about 700 ml of water, 8 grams of salt, and 12 grams of yeast. First, the yeast is dissolved in water and added to the sourdough, then the dough “rests,” is kneaded again, shaped into balls of exactly 95 grams each, and set to rest once more. After baking, each piece becomes about 75 grams of bread — the same portion served at school lunch, without slicing.
Gayane Davudyan, assistant cook at Martuni’s School No. 2, named after Saribek Darbinyan in Gegharkunik, had been baking bread for more than 500 children even before this training. She says it wasn’t bad overall, but she could never achieve such softness. Now, with new knowledge and notes in her notebook, Gayane is preparing to return to school in September, determined to bake exactly as instructed and demonstrated: “The children really did enjoy eating wholegrain bread, though now I realize I wasn’t baking it entirely correctly,” she says. “From September, I will try to follow every step with precise measurements and timing, so that I get the same soft, appetizing bread we achieved during the course.”
Narine Manukyan, cook at the Ardzrun Khachatryan Secondary School in Tsovinar, immediately understood what was causing her bread to turn out dry and tough. “I used to knead the dough before going home in the evening and leave it overnight to bake fresh in the morning,” she explains. “It turned out it’s better to knead and bake the day before, to have fresh bread ready in the morning, than to leave the dough fermenting all night. I’ve decided to go to school before the new academic year starts, bake once in a new way, and test it — so that by September I’ll be confident.”
“I am confident that after this course all the cooks will be able to bake proper, soft, and tasty wholegrain bread,” says Ani Mkrtchyan. “They already possess the right baking skills and tricks, have exact measurements at hand, and have seen with their own eyes how fragrant bread comes out of the oven when each step is followed carefully. So, for 12 schools, the thesis ‘good bread cannot be made from whole grain, it is difficult to work with’ has been closed. I told the cooks: if you do everything as we learned, and it still doesn’t work — call me, I will come, and we’ll figure it out together on site.”
From September, the School Feeding and Child Welfare Agency will begin the next cycle of field monitoring — this time paying special attention to how the baking process changes in schools whose cooks learned the secrets of healthy bread in Tsaghkunk. “Training is a stage, not the end; the next step is on the ground, with real results and our ‘finger on the pulse,’” says Satenik Mkrtchyan. “Proper baking methods will also change the organization of kitchen work and the planning of time spent on baking and serving. Cooks will need to adjust their approaches, and we will ensure that everything goes smoothly, without unnecessary difficulties.”
In parallel, the Agency is considering holding similar trainings for cooks in other regions. By the end of the year, another 1–2 such practical meetings are planned, covering up to 25 cooks, so that more schools quickly move to the correct technology of wholegrain bread baking. The goal is one: to turn what is learned in the training hall into everyday kitchen practice and ensure that on every schoolchild’s plate there is daily wholegrain bread of consistent quality — fresh, soft, fragrant, with the appetizing aroma that children will eagerly await each morning…