Australian baking industry stalwart Craig Perry has been recognised in the 2025 Order of Australia list.

The ABINSA Scholarship, and Bake Skills founder was recognised in the list, which was released in June to coincide with the King’s birthday, for his service to the hospitality industry.

It was an acknowledgement that Craig said he appreciated, but also that he accepted on behalf of the wider baking industry.

“[I’m a bit] embarrassed. It’s a really lovely honour, and I think the baking industry needs something like this,” he said.

“I don’t know who my nominees were – I’ve got a couple of suspects but no one’s owning up to it.”

Craig began his career in the industry with US-based Quaker Oats. After moving to Melbourne to take up a role in the marketing department, he was eventually promoted to food service/baking national manager. It was here that he was first exposed to the baking side of Quaker Oats.

“I got nominated to be the company delegate to the Australian Society of Baking (ASB),” he said.

“Through that I joined the ASB and then got an interest in baking. While I was out in the marketplace with Quaker Oats – because I looked after their frozen dough business for food service and baking – I saw a few bakers out there and then came back and said to the team , ‘look these guys are in trouble. They make a nice product but they’ve got no idea about marketing’. That’s where the idea for the Great Aussie Pie Competition came from.”

Craig worked with Mike Fleming from TAFE and John Ross from the Pastrycook & Bakers News Monthly to establish the competition, with the aim of helping “mum and dad bakeries”, and 12 months later had also established the Australian Baking Industry National Scholarship Awards.

This was closely followed by the launch of the Bake Skills competition, which first began as a TAFE versus TAFE teams event.

Craig said he had never anticipated these competitions growing to their current scale, or that they would become a launching pad for so many industry-leading bakers and pastry chefs.

“I get terrific pleasure in seeing all those kids coming through and winning a scholarship and going overseas. Some of them are going onto bigger and better things [because of it],” he said.

“A whole host of people have come through that way, and it’s fantastic to watch them.”

Craig said he had plans of quietly celebrating the OAM, which should be presented to him in the coming weeks.