Bakery products and the problem of food abundance in the late Soviet Union

The article examines technological development and the role of scientific research in producing bread and bakery products in the Soviet Union from the mid-1950s to the 1980s. Focusing on Leningrad and the Leningrad region (oblasf), it discusses the role of scientific research in constructing food abundance in the Soviet Union. It particularly examines the specifics of ideological constructing of abundance, but also focuses on the role of scientists in making bread and bakery products. In addition, it emphasizes practical implementations of from-state-given tasks and scientific research. In so doing, the paper focuses on the qualities that bread and bakery products acquired while production was transformed from small bakeries into large industrial enterprises. The article concludes that the possibilities of Soviet science, particularly food chemistry and microbiology, made it possible to produce a wide assortment of bread products which had a longer best before date and were healthier due to vitaminization. In practice, however, this variety was rarely a real project, and the average Soviet consumer did not have an access to it. The problem hid in the deficiencies of the mechanisms of the planned economy, such as the lack of qualified workers, problems of automation and modernization, etc.