Real Bread at Latitude 2024

The Theatre of Food family have invited the Real Bread Campaign back to curate demos and a talk at Latitude Festival in Suffolk, which runs from 25 to 28 July 2024.

• Friday 12-12.45pm: Marcia Harris (The Flour Union) will talk about making Real Bread with children and demo animal-shaped buns.
• Saturday 12-12.45pm: Estera-Rosa Cundill (Rosa’s Bakery) will demo Romanian poale’n brâu / brânzoaice, sweet cheese and raisin parcels.
• Sunday 1-2pm: Better bred bread discussion and Q&A. Panel includes Alexander Aitchison (Acre Farm), Abel Holsborough (Brixton Windmill), Henritta Inman (Wakelyns Bakery) and Lauren Rathbone (School of Artisan Food.) 

All three sessions will be MCd by Real Bread Campaign coordinator Chris Young. He’ll be talking about the charity’s work, including the new Bake Your Lawn grow-a-loaf guidebook

Weekend and day tickets to the festival are available from the Latitude website.

Lineup and all other details are subject to change without notice. For the latest information, please check the Latitude app or the board outside the Theatre of Food tent.

Better bred bread

How do we select wheat and other grains, then grow, mill and turn them into Real Bread in ways that are better for us, better for our communities and better for the planet?

Join the Real Bread Campaign’s panel of farming, milling and baking experts for a conversation about optimising flavour and nutrition, while also prioritising social and local economic benefits, as well as minimising negative (and increasing positive) environmental impacts of production. We’ll consider wheat varieties, farming methods, stone milling, wholemeal flour, sourdough fermentation and more.

Who’s who

Alexander Aitchison is a chef and baker with a wealth of culinary experience and a passion for working with fresh, locally-sourced ingredients. He has worked at top restaurants in Edinburgh, including Timber Yard, Bon Vivant and Café St. Honoré, as well as in London, New York and France. Alexander subscribes to the Slow Food movement and using the best of his surroundings to create simple, seasonal dishes packed with flavour. Having found a love for making Real Bread and other delicious treats, he’s now mastering the art of small batch sourdough. In 2022, Alexander and his wife Emily opened ACRE Farm and Bakery in the heart of the Suffolk countryside. Their vision for ACRE is to regenerate the soil by returning to a time-honoured system of farming. They use no artificial fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or other external inputs. The bakery is at the heart of the farm, where they are proud to grow grain for, and use flour from, Wildfarmed. @acre_farm www.acrefarm.org

Estera-Rosa Cundill set up a bakery in 2023 in the Welsh town of Neath when she was just 17, with the help of her mum, dad and brothers. Long queues form frequently for her organic bread, pastries, cookies and cakes. She adds a Romanian twist to her products, drawing upon the heritage of her mum’s homeland. Rosa’s Bakery, which sells out almost every day, has an open-plan kitchen from where she gets to see and interact with customers while her family serves with great joy. (Read more of Rosa's story.)
@rosasbakery.co.uk facebook.com/rosasbakery.co.uk

Marcia Harris is a Real Bread Campaign ambassador, a primary school child and family support practitioner, and the founder of The Flour Union, a social enterprise dedicated to offering inspiring workshops for families focused on the art of baking. The Flour Union's flagship programme, Bread that Bonds, is a unique therapeutic bread-making experience that encourages and strengthens the bond between parents and children. With the help of specially designed resources, parents are empowered to create a special time and space to connect with their child on a one-to-one basis. This helps to develop the essential skills necessary to enhance their children's social-emotional literacy. This year, Marcia is overseeing the installation of a bread oven, and a Bake Your Lawn project, at the school where she works. (Read Marcia's profile.) @theflourunion www.theflourunion.com

Abel Holsborough is an artist and the lead miller at Brixton Windmill in London. Abel works with a team of volunteers to produce and package wholemeal flour, which is sold to bakeries and homebakers in the local community, including Aries Bakehouse, the Old Post Office Bakery and The Clink charity at neighbouring HMP Brixton. Abel is also involved in the South East Grain Alliance and their 'day job' is driving Mail Rail trains for The Postal Museum. @akidinlondon www.brixtonwindmill.org

Henrietta Inman is a baker, cook, and author. She is the founder of Wakelyns Bakery at Wakelyns Agroforestry farm, the home of the genetically diverse YQ population wheat. She makes genuine sourdough wholemeal bread from 100% UK-grown grain. The bakery’s mission is to ‘create delicious food for our community with the beautiful diverse abundance blossoming around us.’ That’s exactly what they do, using produce from the farm’s arable and tree alleys and from other traceable agroecological sources. Henrietta believes that an agroecological transition, rooted in interdependence, justice and love, has the potential to change us and our world for the better. @wakelynsbakery www.wakelyns.co.uk/bakery

Lauren Rathbone RD, BSc, is a food-loving registered dietitian who leads Best Food Forward, a food education project based at The School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire. She has supported people with their food choices both clinically in the NHS and more recently as part of The School’s wider charitable projects within the community. She currently works with local secondary schools and GP surgeries to improve access to health-promoting food education. Lauren follows an evidence-based approach to nutrition, incorporating the science to explore what we eat, why we choose it and what impact it has on our physical and mental health. @schoolofartisanfood @thebestfoodforwardproject www.bestfoodforward.co.uk

Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign for the food and farming charity Sustain since March 2009. He has created and run initiatives including Real Bread For All on affordability and accessibility, No Loaf Lost for bakery surplus reduction, Lessons in Loaf in schools, Together We Rise to increase therapeutic and social baking, and runs the annual Real Bread Week and Sourdough September. He also leads lobbying for an Honest Crust Act of improved composition, labelling and marketing standards. Chris wrote the Slow Dough: Real Bread book of recipes, Knead to Know…more microbakery handbook and this year’s Bake Your Lawn grow-a-loaf guidebook. @realbreadcampaign www.realbreadcampaign.org

Photos: Abel Holsborough © TBC, Henrietta Inman © Patricia Niven, Alexander Aitchison © Katherine Mager, Rosa Cundill © Business in Focus, Lauren Rathbone © The School of Artisan Food, Wheaty © Lara Durham, Marcia Harris © Markus Drayss, sourdough selfie © Chris Young.

See also

Real Bread at Latitude archive