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Breadcrumbs

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2013

NB As this is an archive, some of the infomation and links given might no longer be current or correct.

Previous years

June

Those of you running or planning microbakeries, Community Supported Bakeries and all other sorts of small Real Bread enterprises will be happy to hear that the wait to get your floury fingers on our book Knead to Know is over. The PDF is all well and good, but there’s joy to be had from unsticking pages welded together with dough.

Thanks to all of you who got involved in helping us to spread the Real Bread message and raise some dough during Real Bread Maker Week. It’s been great to read stories from new home bakers, of unloved bread machines dusted off, and bakeries telling us of new customers.

Looking ahead, we’re helping to run a Real Bread workshop for community food enterprises in June and I need YOUR help to make sure Local Loaves for Lammas and Sourdough September are as successful as Real Bread Maker Week.

Well, for these and more crumbs of what’s going on in the Real Bread movement, please read on…

Upper Crust

Knead to Know – back in print!
After more than a year since the limited edition first run sold out, thanks to specialist food and drink publisher Grub Street, Knead to Know is back on bookshelves. Whatever small Real Bread enterprise you’re planning or running, Knead to Know is the guide to success in bringing Real Bread to the heart of your local community. For full details of the book and our exclusive 33% discount offer, click here.

Real Bread Maker Week – cleaning down the bench
Thanks to those of you who got involved, so far we have harvested in donations totalling more than £2500 to help fund our charitable work.  

If you raised money during the week and haven’t sent it to us yet, please do so today. Read how here.


We still want to see your photos and read your stories from the week so we can publish our favourites. Read how here.

Real Bread Maker Week will return in May 2014 – can’t say we didn’t give you enough notice!

Other crumbs

Ex-offenders turn dough tenders
Recently, Campaign member Virtuous Bread has been working to help ex-offenders in Manchester to become Bread Angels. One person inspired by her lessons with Rosie Clark to set up her own Real Bread social enterprise is new Campaign member Francesca Barker. Read the first chapter in her story, and how you can be part of The Barker Baker’s future, here.

True Loaf – any news?
If you have any snippets of bready things you’ll be up to between July and September, please drop us a short line THIS WEEK and we’ll see how many we can squeeze into the next issue of our members’ magazine. Please also add details to our events calendar so everyone can see them. realbread [at] sustainweb.org

Lessons in Loaf
Is your school a Food For Life school? Has it run a great Real Bread initiative? If so, the school could stand the chance of winning the Soil Association Organic Food Award for Best School Community Initiative. For details click here.

Real Bread enterprise

Crumb Together: community food café/enterprise Real Bread workshop
Sibling Sustain projects Ethical Eats and the Real Bread Campaign have teamed up with The Better Health Bakery and The Hornbeam Bakers’ Collective to run a workshop in east London on 25 June. Places are available only to people from community cafés / community food enterprises with a genuine plan to put Real Bread on their menus. For full details click here.

Job vacancies
Part of the support your Campaign offers to Real Bread bakers is our classified ads page. Jobs for budding Real Bread bakers we’ve published recently include vacancies at The Bertinet Bakery in Bath, Daylesford in Gloucestershire, Forge Bakehouse in Sheffield, The Handmade Bakery in Yorkshire, Leeds Bread Co-op, Woodstock’s Artisan Bakery in Buckinghamshire and a new organic store in Tunbridge Wells. To find and add Real Bread classified ads click here.

FREE Making Local Food Work support
A reminder that if you run a community food enterprise you might be eligible for free support arranged by Plunkett Foundation. This would be tailored to your specific needs and could include business, marketing and even baking advice and mentoring from an experienced Real Bread baker. For more details click here.

Is your Real Bread wild at heart?
Sourdough September will be the first ever national event dedicated to celebrating naturally-leavened Real Bread. If you have a love for lactobacilli, a passion for preferments*, are moonstruck by microbes and want the Campaign’s help to share this with the nation, we need to know NOW how you’ll be getting involved. To really get the demystifying message out there beyond the usual crowd, we need to get glossy food mags on board and they work months in advance. For a few suggestions of how you can be your local cultural champion, click here.

* yeah, I know you can make preferments with commercial yeast as well, but I’m on an alliterative roll here…

Local Loaves for Lammas
Join the celebrations on and around 1 August. To stand the chance of being featured in our media release to more than 200 journalists around the UK, please add details of your event to our calendar now! For details click here.

End crust

Someone give this man (and his simply fab t-shirt – where did he get it?) his own TV show now!

Campaign member Vincent Talleu’s Real Bread making video guide, which has been watched more than 58,500 times in just two weeks.

May

Finally, it’s here!

Yes, after months of chivvying the bread lovers of Britain to join our annual nationwide extravaganza, Real Bread Maker Week begins tomorrow, Saturday 11 May.

In case you missed it somehow, the gist of the week is to help the people of Britain celebrate Real Bread and its makers, be they the bakers on our high streets, machines at the back of cupboards, or the ones at the end of our arms.

As the end of our Big Lottery Local Food programme and Sheepdrove Trust funded work is fast approaching, we’re also asking everyone to help secure our future: we’ve got great new plans to help people having a tougher time than most of us but we need the dough to do it.

We hope we can count on YOUR support.

Even if you do nothing else, this aint Fight Club, so the first rule is tell EVERYONE about Real Bread Maker Week!

Upper crust

Please DO get shirty with us
In support of the Campaign, the very nice people at Balcony Shirts have created a LIMITED EDITION Real Bread t-shirt just for us. The exclusive design is available in male, female and child styles and, being very nice people, Balcony Shirts will donate £4 to the Campaign (£3 child sizes) for every one they sell. Hurry: buy yours NOW at balconyshirts.co.uk

WIN £150 to spend on bakery bits
Thanks to Campaign member bakerybits.co.uk, simply by tweeting a photo of yourself wearing your EXCLUSIVE Real Bread tee in the most unusual place you can think of you could WIN £150 to spend on baking equipment and ingredients. Find full #realbreadcomp details and rules here.

Fantastic Real Bread online auction
No, we’re not auctioning off loaves…

From Saturday morning, you'll have just seven days to bid for the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the Real Bread movement’s best-known and respected bakers, Campaign ambassadors Aidan Chapman, Emmanuel Hadjiandreou, Tom Herbert and Andrew Whitley. Also on offer are an exclusive ‘Meet the Miller’ tour of Shipton Mill with its owner John Lister; and sacks (literally) of flour from Essex family miller Marriage’s. Find out more here.

More crumbs

Offers
The special offers companies are making in support of Real Bread Maker Week include: A third off of every Brook Bakery School Real Bread class booked and paid for between 11 and 17 May; and The Real Bread Campaign Organic Bundle, available exclusively from the Doves Farm website, representing a 20% saving against the items if purchased separately; and 20% off bread flours bought from Marriage’s website during Real Bread Maker Week. Find details of these and more here.

Some of the nice things people are doing for us
It’s great to see so many activities on our events calendar and special thanks to people who’re using the week to raise some dough for us. Perhaps something here will make you think 'aha - now that's something I could do, too!'

  • Cinnamon Square in Rickmansworth are running a children's bread making workshop and donating all proceeds to the Campaign.
  • Bread Matters are donating £4 for every new starter kit they sell, and running a fundraising raffle at a special dinner they're holding in conjunction with Café St Honoré.
  • Bread At Home will be taking Real Bread to sell at work donating 50p per loaf to the Campaign
  • Leicester Born and Bread is donating 10% of all sales during Real Bread Maker Week to the Campaign.
  • Joe's Bakery in Bristol is launching a new 'National Loaf' made from organic stoneground wholemeal and white flour and donating 50p from each one sold to the Campaign.

You can find (and add, it’s not too late…) details of these and more local events, offers and other activities on our calendar here.

Upgrade from supporter to Campaign member
Are you a Campaign member, or do you simply benefit from a FREE listing for your loaves on our Real Bread Finder, or just subscribe to Breadcrumbs? If you care about the state of bread in Britain and want the Campaign to be able to continue its work please JOIN US TODAY!

Sippets

  • Many traditional flour mills will be opening their doors on 11 and/or 12 May for National Mills Weekend.
  • Join bakers around the globe for this month’s #breadchat on Twitter from 8-9pm on Wednesday 15 May.
  • The producers of ITV series Britain’s Best Bakery (won by Campaign member Hambleton Bakery last year) are looking for entrants for the new series. To take part or nominate a bakery call 0207 985 7568 or email bestbakery[at]shine.tv

April

The countdown to Real Bread Maker Week is on! Even if you’re not planning to organise an event, there are ways you can join in the fun and help raise money for the Campaign.

I’m trying to keep this edition short but must give space to saying thanks to outgoing office volunteer Bex Clarke for all of her help since last summer.

PS – Sorry if you were expecting ‘crumbs in mid-March. It’s been kinda frantic around the office.

Upper crust

Real Bread Maker Week
It’ll be with us before you know it – May 11-17, to be exact. Lined up from here we’ll have an online auction of some great bready lots and a fab, limited edition Real Bread t-shirt. In case you haven’t made your own plans yet, last week we published a guide of how you can get involved in helping us to raise dough to do good. You can download your copy and read more about the week here.

Free Real Bread class for school teachers
Like to teach your pupils how to bake Real Bread, would find a workshop useful to help build your confidence and can make it to central London on 7 May? Then click here for details.

New True Loaf: address check
If you’ve taken the step beyond following our work by subscribing as a Campaign member, then True Loaf will be on its way to you in the first week of April. If you’ve moved since you last received a copy, then please let us know your new address.

If you’ve not yet become a Campaign member and would like to read our exclusive, quarterly full-colour magazine, please join us today. 

More crumbs

Wheat seeds for school projects
The Brockwell Bake Association can offer small quantities of Dammant spring seed wheat to schools and community gardens while stocks last.  Find more about this and other places to get wheat for your Bake Your Lawn project here.

Cake & Bake Show
Following the success of its first outing in London last autumn, this Friday the show ventures to Manchester. Campaign folks working to keep it real amongst all the cakery over the three days will be Patrick Moore, Aidan Chapman, Tom Herbert, Duncan Glendinning and Patrick Ryan. Find full details here.

Comic Relief
Inspiration for your Real Bread Maker Week event? Thanks to Flour Power, Flour Station and Poilane for donating Real Bread that helped Comic Relief HQ’s bake sale raise £3116 for Red Nose Day.

Real Bread enterprise

Apprenticeship grants
The National Apprenticeship Service is offering grants of up to £1,500 to eligible employers taking on paid apprentices aged between 16 and 24. This in addition to the training costs of the Apprenticeship framework. For full details, click here.

Real Bread job vacancies
They keep comin’ in and we keep publishin’ them here.

Funding
We’ve posted plenty of funding opportunities that might be of use to local Real Bread enterprises and projects in The Real Baker-e.

Sippets

  • Thanks to Peter Cook for putting together a, sadly unsuccessful, bid to get a Real Bread stand at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.
  • Nominate a Real Bread bakery or campaigner for Observer Ethical Awards here
  • A crowd funding bid to start producing a recycled, British made alternative to imported bannetons
  • Congratulations to Campaign member Paul's Bakery in Melton Mowbray on topping Ethical Consumer magazine's bread shopping guide
  • Vote for your fave Real Bread book, bakery and baking classes in Food and Travel Awards here
  • Help us make some noise with Thunderclap
  • A few familiar names in Campaign member Signe Johansen’s roundup of London bakeries for the Financial Times

February

Well, we’re continuing the momentum we gathered in January with activities including a gathering for Campaign members and Lessons in Loaf workshop for teachers. We're keeping the Real Bread message in the headlines and on the airwaves, including a couple of appearances on BBC2 and even DW, the German equivalent of the World Service!
Looking ahead, we’re working on gathering support for Real Bread Maker Week in May, looking at ways to cut bread waste, finding funding for our work…oh, all sorts of great stuff.
Don’t forget you can find the latest updates in The Real Baker-e and our Twitter and Facebook feeds but for now, please read on.

Ah yes, if you’re based London way and reckon you could spare a day (or more) a week, I need a hand around the office, please…

Upper Crust

Real Bread Maker Week - raising dough to do good!
May really isn’t that far away so please get thinking NOW about how YOU will help us to raise not only awareness but also funds to help the rise of Real Bread in Britain. We’ll be publishing handy fundraising guides on our website soon but in the meantime, please take a mo to have a look at the new work we’re raising money to do. 

Join us for discounts on Real Bread classes
As if the opportunity to support our great work and the invitation to join our mutually-supportive national network of your fellow Real Bread lovers isn’t enough, just check out the discounts that at least 35 of the 100+ Real Bread classes we know offer to our members. The latest is courtesy of Cooper & Whites Artisan Workshops, taught by Hambleton Bakery’s Paul White.

Campaign office volunteer opportunity
After seven months of helping Chris at Real Bread HQ, Bex Clarke is moving on from office volunteering in search of something more hands-on. With thanks to Bex for her generous support, Chris now needs someone else to help get the job done. You can find full details of the opportunity here.

More crumbs

Bake Your Lawn
If you’re thinking of planting a handful of spring wheat at a local school so kids can follow the Real Bread journey from seed to sandwich, now’s the time to get sowing! You can download our sow it, mill it, bake it, eat it guide here. 

You can find inspiring stories and pictures from some of the hundreds of schools that have baked their lawns over the past couple of years here.

Let’s get Real Bread making into ALL schools!
The government has launched a consultation on plans for a National Curriculum food. If like us you believe that Real Bread making, healthy eating lessons, how to decipher food labels and food growing should be part of every child’s education, now’s the time to have your say here.

Clervaux Bakery
The Big Lottery’s Local Food programme is sponsoring Chris to visit another project it funds, Campaign member Clervaux Bakery. Chris’s report will appear in the next True Loaf, which will also feature The Veterans’ Artisan Bakery. These are just two of the great organisations with which our proposed new project will allow us to work more closely.

The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
As a warm up for Real Bread Maker Week, here’s another great cause for which you might like to get baking.

Real Bread enterprise

Real Bread book
We’ll have exciting news about Knead to Know for you very soon but in the meantime, we’re working on a new book to celebrate some of the 550+ Real Bread bakers we know around the UK and beyond. If you’d like to contribute one of your own recipes, please let us know by email: realbread [at] sustainweb.org 

Gizza job!
The latest Real Bread job vacancies we’ve received details about are at Henderson’s Artisan Bakery & Cafe in Salisbury, e5 Bakehouse and Debaere in London, The Bakery Dunbar and Dumouchel Patisserie near Leeds. For details click here.

Are you this year’s Young British Foodies baking star?
The YBFs Foundation ‘is here to shine a spotlight on this grassroots talent (in the annual awards) and provide a springboard to success with world class mentoring and commercial opportunities.’  The winner in last year's baking category was Campaign member Bridget Hugo of Bread Bread, so let's give this year's judges (including Campaign member Daniel Stevens, who wrote the River Cottage bread book) plenty of Real Bread to chew over this year. Read more and enter here.

Sippets

End crust

Thanks to the 80 or so of you who joined us at the Real Bread get together last month. There were some great ideas shared and new friendships made. You can find links to snaps from the family album and stories from the day here.

January

Happy New Year!

We’re off to a flying start with a teachers’ workshop this week, the gathering next Thursday and funding bids going off left, tight and centre.

So without further ado, here’s the lowdown.

If you’re one of the 100 people joining us on the 24th, I look forward to seeing you there and perhaps we’ll get chance to chat.

Upper Crust

New True Loaf
The latest issue of our magazine went in the post to paid-up Campaign members last week.  As well as a chance to WIN a copy of Microbakin' by Mick Hartley, features include Albert Smith's social enterprise with people living with mental health issues, The Tiny Bakery's Use Your Loaf scheme for the benefit of disadvantaged local people; Bread Hero: Mair's Bakehouse; Robin van Creveld community baking in Lewes; Bex Clarke looks at bread clubs; Steve Watson on eco-ovens; Ottavia Mazzoni's reports on bread in Italy; Alex Poulter on his Bristol bakery; plus much more… Campaign members can download the PDF version here.

Real Bread get together
The gathering at The School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire on 24 January for current (and potential) Campaign members includes short talks from Campaign ambassadors Emmanuel Hadjiandreou, Tom Herbert and Andrew Whitley. The free event is now fully-booked but for full details of the afternoon and how to join the cancellation waitlist click here.

More news

Future plans  
The Campaign has great plans to help people facing social exclusion to take advantage of the social, therapeutic and employment opportunities that Real Bread making offers. Click here for further details.

Membership plea
The Campaign being able to do this proposed new work depends on getting the dough to do so.  Chris is busy writing to grant funders but we’re always open to other offers. And if you’re one of the 700 people who’ve been ignoring, or simply deleting, emails requesting that you make your membership payment, or one of thousands more who’ve not ever got beyond signing up for this free enewsletter, now’s your chance to help the Campaign. Click here to visit our membership page.

Discounts
The most recent lovely people to offer Real Bread class discounts to Campaign members are Jamie’s Farm in Wiltshire, Cocoa & Heart’s in Bexleyheath and Bread Matters in Peebleshire. Find details of these and more than 100 class providers around the UK here.

Formal consultation on the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998
Defra is reviewing the continued need for mandatory fortification of flour in England with calcium, iron, niacin and thiamin.  We're working on the Campaign's response but you might also be interested in submitting your own. Find the consultation here.

Food writing competition
Are you, or do you know someone who is, an 11 to 18 year old wordsmith?  If so, the Guild of Food Writers’ annual Write It competition offers an opportunity to help spread the word about Real Bread. Young ’uns are invited to submit a non-fiction feature of around 750 words on any food-related subject.  The winner will receive a library of the books shortlisted for the 2013 Guild of Food Writers’ Awards. He or she will also enjoy a visit to delicious magazine’s test kitchen, and the winning piece will be published on the delicious website. For more information please visit gfw.co.uk

Real Bread enterprise

Jobs and voluntary placements
Real Bread bakeries seeking employees this month include The Thoughtful Bread Company near Bath/Bristol and Breadshare in the Scottish Borders. On the voluntary opportunities front, placements are being offered by Slow  Bread Co. in Chiswick and a new social enterprise in Kenya.

Real Bread Maker Week
We’ll be posting the outline for this year’s main Real Bread celebration (11-17 May) in The Real Baker-e and emailing them to bakers with Real Bread Finder records soon. In the meantime, get your thinking caps on as to how you will help raise awareness of Real Bread - It’ll be here before you know it!

New funding for rural community enterprises
The Plunkett Foundation has announced a new support service for rural communities. The service offers advisor support, training and feasibility grants of up to £2,000 to help rural communities set up community owned services like bakeries, shops and pubs.. The support is specifically designed for groups at the early planning stages to help them progress to the next stage. To be eligible community groups have to raise at least £10,000 themselves through community shares. For more information click here. Contact The Plunkett Foundation: 01993 810730 or email: info [at] plunkett.co.uk.

Sippets

  • Another school lawn baked!
  • Real Bread blog: Since the last ’crumbs, we’ve published three posts on our blog. Read Tony Homfray, Simon Rowan and Vicky North's articles here.
  • Britain’s Best Bakery: Just before Christmas, Hambleton Bakery pipped fellow Real Bread Campaign member Dunbar Community Bakery to the title of Britain’s Best Bakery in the eponymous ITV show. Congratulations to them and to all of the other bakeries who flew the Real Bread flag during the series.

End crust

Not sure I’d want to advertise just how many factory loaves I’d bought so publically, but I have to say I think this student recycled art project looks great.