Pig pancreas and chicken feathers in factory loaves?

(Probably) not in your factory loaf. Credit: www.realbreadcampaign.org CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0

Published: Friday 1 May 2026

Recently, the Real Bread Campaign has noticed a small resurgence in the assertion that industrial dough fabricators are using additives derived from pig pancreas, pig bristles and chicken feathers in Chorleywood Process sliced white loaves and so on.

So, is this true?

Labelling loopholes

L-cysteine is classified as an additive and must be declared on the ingredients list by name or the code E920. What the manufacturer doesn't have to state is its source / origin.

Phospholipase A2, falls through what we see as an even bigger labelling loophole: it's considered to be a 'processing aid' meaning industrial dough fabricators can use it and choose not to declare it on the label at all, let alone its source.

What we found

The Real Bread Campaign investigated this issue back in 2009. What we found was that there were bakery 'ingredients' suppliers outside the UK selling porcine (i.e. pig) phospholipase A2 and L-cysteine hydrochloride derived from poultry feathers. There had also been reports that human hair was a source of the latter.

The answers we received at the time from industrial dough fabricators that responded to our questions, and from the Federation of Bakers, led us to conclude it was highly unlikely that any UK manufacturer was knowingly using L-cysteine or phospholipase A2 of human or animal origin.

We found no evidence to support the suggestion that any UK manufacturer might unknowingly be buying either from an unscrupulous supplier, either, and have no reason to believe that the situation has changed since then.

Altogether additive-free

If you want to avoid 'processing aids' and other additives altogether, you can make your own bread or buy it from a Real Bread bakery.

You can find FREE recipes, the Real Bread Map and details of The Real Bread Loaf Mark on the Real Bread Campaign website.

Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. In addition to lobbying for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf composition, labelling and marketing laws in the UK; he created and runs initiatives including: Sourdough September; Real Bread Week; Real Bread For All; Together We Rise, promoting therapeutic/social benefits of bread making; No Loaf Lost surplus reduction guidance; and Lessons in Loaf for schools. He’s the author of the Knead to Know…more microbakery handbook, Slow Dough: Real Bread recipe book and Bake Your Lawn grow-a-loaf guidebook; and edits True Loaf magazine.

From 2014-18, Chris also coordinated Sustain's London Food Link network, which included editing The Jellied Eel magazine and helping to launch and run the Urban Food Awards with the Mayor of London’s office. Chris has pulled on his judge’s wig for BOOM Awards, The Cateys, The Great Taste Awards, The Scottish Bread Championship and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship, and in 2025 he was named joint Person of The Year by Slow Food in The UK.

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