Bread-making factory

A recent news story by one of our writers made reference to a "bread-making factory". My first thought as a sub was to change this to 'bakery', but before I did so I checked with the writer who had submitted the story.

His reasoning behind using 'bread-making factory' rather than 'bakery' was that 'bakery' might make readers think of a shop rather than a large manufacturing operation – a high-street baker's, perhaps.

An interesting point, but Apus made an executive decision and we went with 'bakery'. Not before he had pointed out that 'bread factory' would have been pithier than 'bread-making factory' in any case...

Googling "bread-making factory" does throw up some hits from UK sites, so it's obviously a dilemma other subs have faced. The Telegraph & Argus hedged its bets and used both....

1 comment:

Apus said...

Oh dear... having seen the story in print I reckon we should probably have gone with bread factory ( the word factory derives from "manufactory" – a place where things are manufactured – so "bread making factory" would be tautological).

My logic, such as it is, is that while a bakery is certainly somewhere where bread is made, a bread factory implies a production line with loading bays, packaging and the like, which makles it more suitable in this context.