John Reminis Junior, of Bakehouse Delights, represented Australia at the Young Bakery Hopeful Competition and was just one point away from being the world’s best.

The competition was held in conjunction with the Coupe Du Monde de La Boulangerie competition, the World Cup of baking, in France.

Mr Reminis was one of five young bakers from around the world to take part in the prestigious competition and came within a whisker of being the world number one, placing second to a female Dutch baker by just one point.

“It was an amazing experience and I’m delighted with my performance,” he said.

Reminis, 22, walked away with the Food Critic’s Selection award.

He qualified for the French competition by blitzing the Young Hopefuls’ field in Jakarta to take out the Asian title.

“Every continent in the world is represented at the titles,” he said.

The competition originally started with representatives of 35 countries before being whittled down to the last five.

“The senior competition is renowned around the world and very highly regarded,” he said.

“This was the first time they have held a junior competition so just to qualify was an awesome experience and to finish second was fantastic.”

Each competitor had four hours to produce two sweet and two savoury dishes, to the theme of a child’s garden brunch party.

“We were told about four weeks out what the theme was and then had to come up with our creations and menu,”he said.

“We had four hours to create 25 pieces of each dish.”

Two bakers, two food critics and one chef judged the competitors on the look of their creations, taste, texture, how organised the competitors were, cleanliness of work, how they worked and, of course, focused on the time.

John created beetroot sliders and a harbour garden brioche featuring salmon, asparagus and cheese as his savoury dishes and choc brioche donuts and laminet brioche butterfly as his sweets.

“It was a pretty full on competition,” he said.

“It was the biggest competition I’ve ever been in. It was like the world championship of baking.

“It would have been nice to take it out but to finish second, albeit by one point, was great.”

Following the competition, along with his father John Senior he attended a trade fair and then travelled to Lithuania, Scotland and Ireland.

“We got to visit and see some of the best bakers in Europe which was amazing,” he said.

“Just to see the senior competition and watch the bakers work for nine hours of competition was amazing.

“It was an incredible experience. In Europe, bakers are treated like gods. They are feted like our sports stars.”

John Snr, who is also a baker, is extremely proud of his son’s achievements.

“It was a fabulous achievement by John,” he said.

“The family and the business are all so proud.

“We help our apprentices by giving them the skills they need and from there it’s up to them.

“John has pushed himself extremely hard to get to this level and he deserves all the success that comes his way.”

It has been a big year for John, who also won the Junior National WorldSkills Competition and represented Australia at Brazil at the international event.

This year, as reigning champion, he will act as a judge for the WorldSkills.

As for now, it is the first time in four years he isn’t training or preparing for a competition and plans to take some time to relax, and as he is now too old for juniors,  pushing forward with his goal of making the Australian senior baking team.