Are you ready for Sourdough September?

Calling owners of bakeries, baking schools, flour mills; teachers, community group organisers, nursery and old folks’ home workers, 

Whatever activity you’re planning, please, please add the details to the Real Bread Campaign events calendar asap. 

What is it?

This year marks the 10^th annual, international Sourdough September, a focal point in encouraging people to: 

• Buy genuine sourdough bread
• Bake genuine sourdough bread
• Boost the charity behind the Real Bread Campaign

We create and offer this marketing opportunity for you to use in line with these aims in whatever way is also useful to your business/organisation. If you see the potential - please do grab it!

Campaign supporters can login to download the Sourdough September logo. We’ll announce a new template media release and limited edition t-shirt and apron closer to the time.

Read all about genuine sourdough (and sourfaux)

Sourdough For All 

We believe that everyone should have the chance to choose Real Bread, including genuine sourdough. One obstacle to Real Bread For All is the gap between what it costs a small bakery to make bread and what people in their community on lower incomes can afford.

This September, we’re encouraging bakeries to consider trying out ways of subsidising at least one line of sourdough bread to offer it at a reduced price – perhaps in the region of £2 for a large (800g-1kg) loaf and £1 for a small (400-500g) one. 

Ways to fund the subsidy might include:

• Pay it forward scheme: A customer pays for two loaves, with half of this going into the scheme.
• Inviting every customer to pay an optional 50p-£1, perhaps just on purchases of particular items.
• Review your pricing, increasing margins on ‘luxury’ / discretionary purchases to fund the subsidy.

It’s up to each participating bakery how many subsidised loaves they make, their price and how often during the month they are available. We encourage bakers to be transparent to customers about what they’re doing, why and how.

We understand that this is a challenge (especially with rising prices of everything) and won’t work for every business. If you’re willing to give it a go (or you do something similar already), please email details to the Campaign coordinator so that we can inspire others: realbread@sustainweb.org

More ways to get involved 

Common ways bakeries, baking schools, mills and others join the Sourdough September fun include:

• Putting on a sourdough special loaf (or pizza) for the month.
• Running a sourdough baking class. 
• Giving away pots of starter with recipes and care guides. 
• Using #SourdoughSeptember (as well as #sourdough and #RealBreadCampaign) on every relevant social media post. We’re particularly keen to see photos of people making and enjoying genuine sourdough.

If there are other Real Bread bakeries nearby that make genuine sourdough, how about creating a map/trail to encourage people to visit all of you during the month? 

Don’t forget to login to your record to create or update your Real Bread Map listing and, if you haven’t already, sign up to The Real Bread Loaf Mark scheme. 

Whatever you do, please point people towards our website and encourage them to support our work by joining the Campaign, making a doughnation or buying Real Bread gifts.