Help us expose the (not so great) British fake off

People deserve to know the truth about when, where and how food was made. In fact, consumer protection and general food law requires it.

It seems, however, that UK supermarkets might not be as honest and transparent as they could about what's going on behind the scenes at some 'in-store bakery' sections.

In some cases, rather employing trained bakers to make products on site from scratch (ie from basic ingredients), the 'bakery' is in fact what the Real Bread Campaign calls a loaf tanning salon. This is a place where staff members merely load pre-made products into an oven.

Jump to updates

What to capture

The Real Bread Campaign is collecting photos of the following type of claim being made in 'bakery' sections by the UK's 10 largest supermarket chains:

• Freshly baked
• Baked in store
• Baked throughout the day
• Expertly baked 
• Freshly baked for you
• Freshly made today

The claim can be on a poster, window, point of sale display  or product packaging.

Each photo needs to be from a store in which you know that the 'bakery' section products (which typically include baguettes, rolls, tiger loaves and other apparently hand-shaped things) aren't made  from scratch on site.

The Campaign is also collecting examples of supermarket 'bakery' section products on wooden shelves, in baskets, or otherwise displayed in a way that seems intended to evoke an artisan/craft/small bakery.

Send your photos

In your email, please say in which branch of which supermarket chain you took the photo(s). Please also say how you know, or what leads you to believe, there was not a scratch bakery on site.

Click here to email you photos

Please also say whether you're happy to be named, or prefer to remain anonymous, if we publish your photo.

To be clear...

This piece of work is all about marketing. It isn't saying that supermarkets should stop selling cheap products, or anything about additives, sourdough etc. It's simply challenging companies marketing bake-off (re-baked) products as if they are freshly-made and baked in-store.

Full ingredient labelling, and honest, transparent advertising/marketing, will offer people the chance to make better-informed food choices. It will have no effect on price or availability. People who shop only according to these factors will not be hindered in doing so, nor will it affect people who simply don't care.

People discovering the truth might even force supermarkets to reduce profit margins on premium-priced products that are prefabricated elsewhere and merely re-baked in store. See also mass-manufactured 'artisan bread', and sourfaux.

See also

• Freshly faked
• Industrial dough fabricators: update
• An Honest Crust Act: Updating and improving the Bread and Flour Regulations
• Are Supermarket Bloomers (Still) Pants?

Updates

This story has generated media coverage including:

• BBC Morning Live (from 9m 40s into the programme)
• The Guardian: Four major UK supermarkets accused of misleading ‘freshly baked’ bread claim
• The Daily Mail: Tesco accused of lying to customers about baking bread fresh in store - when loaves are actually pre-made and defrosted in 'tanning machines'

For the current status of our investigations and complaints, see: Loaf tanning salon lies?