Bread: how to see it’s additive-free

Many people want to avoid Ultra-Processed Food (UPF), which includes the Chorleywood Process loaf and other industrial dough products.

The Real Bread Campaign runs The Real Bread Loaf Mark scheme to help bakeries give an at-a-glance additive-free assurance to shoppers. Below is a list of almost 140 bakeries that are currently signed up to the scheme.

Always read the label

The Campaign created The Loaf Mark as visual shorthand for bakers to show – and shoppers to see – ‘this bread is additive-free’. It's designed to be used alongside, rather than instead of, full ingredient declaration.

The only way to be sure that food is additive-free is to read the ingredients list. The trouble is that, in the UK (and elsewhere), retailers are not legally required to display this important information for food they sell loose/unwrapped. So-called processing aids don't even have to to be declared on pre-packed food ingredient lists.

From 5 July 2024, the Real Bread Campaign will be urging the new UK government to adopt its long-standing Honest Crust Act proposals for updated and improved composition, labelling and marketing standards. One of these is mandatory full declaration at point of sale of all ingredeints in bread (plus 'processing aids' and other additives used in industrial dough products) sold loose / unwrapped. 

In the meantime, the Campaign urges all bakers and retailers to list this important information voluntarily – for example on packaging, shelf labelling or in-store signage. 

The list

The following 139 bakeries have signed the annual agreement that they will only use The Real Bread Loaf Mark to market products that meet the Campaign’s definition of Real Bread, and The Sourdough Loaf Mark to promote genuine sourdough bread.

Hundreds more bakeries have added their details to the Real Bread Map, which has orange pins to show the businesses that have done both.

Photos © Katerina’s Bread, Chris Young (at St. JOHN Bakery) and Peter Cooks Bread.