Pendford Housewares gets baking with the WI

Pendford Housewares’ new Women’s Institute (WI) bakeware will be in stock and ready for dispatch to retailers tomorrow.

The housewares supplier has agreed to run a competition in the Women’s Institute magazine to announce the range to its members.

The non-stick range made its debut at the Exclusively Housewares trade show in London last month. It consists of 11 items of 0.4mm steel bakeware, as well as a frying pans and saucepans, retailing from £2.99 to £24.99.

Pendeford Housewares sales and marketing manager Patrick Winters said: “The WI Board (some of whom are Le Cordon Bleu trained) spent months testing the products last year, before allowing us to add their name to them.

“Pendeford is the only non-food company that has been granted permission to brand goods ‘WI’. There are jams and chutneys on the market, but we are the only cookware and bakeware company using the brand.”

He added that the WI has agreed to announce the range to members in the September issue of its magazine. To support this, Pendeford has agreed to give one winner £50 worth of bakeware from the range and an oven tray to 10 runners-up.

The WI was established in 1915 to revitalise rural communities and encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. Since then the organisation’s aims have broadened and the WI is now the largest voluntary women’s organisation in the UK. The WI will celebrate its centenary next year and currently has over 212,000 members in around 6,600 WIs.

The Institute has a long connection with cooking and baking, and even owns its own cookery college.

Chair of the WI Enterprises Board Diana Birch said: “We are delighted to be developing WI branded bake and cookware with Pendeford, which will offer something for everyone who is keen to develop their skills in the kitchen, from those attempting their first cake, to the experienced home baker.”

Pendeford was established in 1958, and still makes cookware in the UK.