Get ready for YOUR Real Bread Week

Real Bread Week is fast approaching. It might seem a way off (18-26 February 2023) but trust us – it’ll be here before you know it. Please make and share your plans on our calendar as soon as you can – you know how busy you’ll be in December…

What is Real Bread Week?

We created and run Real Bread Week to celebrate Real Bread and the people behind its rise. The aims are encouraging people to:

• BUY Real Bread
• BAKE Real Bread
• BOOST the Campaign

We’d love YOU to benefit from and help to spread the word about it in whatever way(s) work for you and, if applicable, your business or organisation. 

Post details of your event/activity

My Real Bread Week

Unlike industrial loaf products, Real Bread is personal. For the week’s 14^th annual outing, we’re inviting you to shout about what makes your Real Bread particularly special, or even unique to you. 

• Perhaps it’s because Real Bread and bakers from your cultural heritage are few and far between round your way.
• It could be that you’re the only baker(y) continuing, or reviving, a type of Real Bread specific to your area that has all but died out.
• Maybe your Real Bread is made from locally-grown, locally-milled grain, or even is the fruit of your involvement in a non-commodity grain network.

Of course, Real Bread Week still celebrates everyone of every identity who uses off-the-peg flour to make widely-available types of Real Bread.

Flat mates

We’re striving to help break down misconceptions of what Real Bread is, and of who makes and enjoys it. We continue to welcome and champion bakers and Real Bread of White, northern European heritage, and are working to celebrate bread and welcome bakers of other colours and cultures as well. As part of this, we’re planning to give some love to an array of flatbreads and folk who make them.

If a type of flatbread is part of your culinary cultural heritage and you’d like to write about it and/or share a recipe, please drop us a line. (The same goes if your culinary tradition is for risen bread, for that matter.)

Celebrating your Real Bread’s roots

Commodity flour can be crafted into Real Bread that many people find delicious. Something extra special happens, however, when plant breeders, farmers, millers, bakers and other passionate people come together to make better bred bread.

The local, non-commodity grain alliances that are sprouting up around the UK and elsewhere embody the Campaign’s mission of making Real Bread that’s better for us, better for our communities and better for the planet.

If you’re involved in one, Real Bread Week is an ideal opportunity to raise awareness about it – and let’s talk about how we can work together at local, regional and national levels.

Other ideas

Real Bread For All

Real Bread should be for the many, not the privileged few. The circle to be squared is: how does a bakery bridge the gap between what it costs to make it, and what people can afford to pay?

Will you rise to this challenge by trying out an affordable loaf scheme, at least for Real Bread Week?

Loaf’s what you make it*

In part, Real Bread Week is a gift to small business owners, so please do grab this marketing opportunity to get some free publicity. You could bag yourself a feature or, at the very least, inclusion in a list of best local bakeries or a roundup of events.

Even if you don’t feel you can do something different/extra for the week, it’s worth taking the punt of reaching out to a local newspaper, radio station, influencer, magazine, website etc. to say something like: ‘see the international Real Bread Week that’s coming up? We’re flying the flag for it on your patch.’ 

* or perhaps: ‘seize the dough’.