Federation TAFE student and bakery apprentice takes home prestigious award

Stavriana Taliadoros has always been fascinated by baking. As a young child, her grandparents owned a café-restaurant in London, and her father would later share stories of what it was like working in the family-owned business, as well as the family recipes and tips he learned.  

Growing up, Stavriana shared her dad's enthusiasm for food, and it was clear that this passion would be a career she would pursue. 

Stavriana, a baking student at Federation TAFE, won the School-based Apprentice or Trainee of the Year at the Victorian Training Awards, recognition that her TAFE teacher and her employer at Sunraysia Bread and Butter Bakery say is well deserved and not surprising because of her passion and dedication to her work. 

"I'm over the moon, and I feel like all my hard work has paid off. It is such a great feeling," Stavriana said. 

"Baking isn't just a career for me, it's something that I'm very passionate about and love to do every single day. When I collected the award, I spoke about how what I am doing is something that I can do with passion and love – it's not for the sake of a career path, it's so meaningful to me."  

Stavriana is enrolled in the Certificate III in Baking at Federation TAFE in Ballarat, and is employed as an apprentice at Sunraysia Bread and Butter Bakery in her hometown Mildura every Wednesday and Saturday, where she gets to put her training to work. 

She is also completing her Year 12 VCE and apprenticeship side by side which means a busy schedule and an overlap with school and workplace training. She says this has allowed her to develop valuable time management and organisation skills as she learns to navigate her student and apprenticeship schedules. 

"As a baker, I start my shift as early as 2am, so that means getting up at 1am for those two days, and I attend to various roles, from dough preparation to developing and decorating sweet products, customer service and cleaning," she said. 

Stavriana says throughout the course, she has gained invaluable knowledge and expert training from her experienced coworkers and Federation TAFE trainers in mixing methods and ingredient preparation and interactivity, as well as food-handling techniques, ingredient properties, equipment handling and industry-standard safety practices.  

The course focuses on developing practical, hands-on skills to produce various doughs, sweets and pastries. 

"I have always had a passion for concocting singular ingredients into masterpieces of creativity. I believe I shine the most when developing my ideas into delicious products, sharing an inner part of myself with those around me," she said. 

In 2023, before beginning the Certificate III courses, Stavriana enrolled in Certificate II in Cookery (VDSS) at Riverside Trade Training Centre as part of her Year 10 program. While there, she gained hands-on experience in a commercial kitchen, learning to operate industrial equipment and to work efficiently in a fast-paced environment.   

Through this course, she contributed to events like Mother's Day and Father's Day catering services, rotating roles including cook, cashier, waitress and cleaner. The course also expanded her skills beyond home cooking and elevated her passion for baking treats and bread through producing products such as Swiss rolls and focaccia. 

"I really figured out that this could be something that I'd do as a career. I went into work experience at Sunraysia Bread and Butter Bakery and I realised how much I enjoyed working with sweet products and the decorative side of things, how I could really express myself through a decorative creative piece. From there, I've just kept going and kept trying to excel and learn more, and then began my apprenticeship."  

Federation TAFE Bakery Teacher Mick Windsor says Stavriana's success at the awards left him with a huge smile, and he was quietly confident that she would be successful. The workplace delivery aspect of the course sees Mr Windsor travel to Mildura and go into the workplace to deliver the units to assess the underpinning knowledge and practical elements.

"I was so pleased because Stavriana is an outstanding person who really makes life easy for us because she is so committed and enthusiastic in everything that she does," Mr Windsor said. 

"She is always demonstrating her knowledge, sets a high standard and is a motivated worker in the bakery. She has already had success in bakery industry competitions and has the potential to succeed at a higher level.”  

Stavriana has represented Sunraysia Bread and Butter Bakery in several apprentice-level baking competitions and took third place in the Great Australian Vanilla Slice Triumph Merbein in 2024 and 2025.  

In 2024, she competed in the South Australian Baking Show, where she took second place in the four-strand dough plait category. This year, she competed in the Victorian Bread Show, where she took third place for her white block loaf.  

"This is so well deserved – we're all extremely proud of this achievement and can't wait to see where she goes next," said Mr Windsor.