Ambassador profile: Neil Holland

Neil Holland first encountered Loaf, a baking co-operative in the heart of England, 15 years ago. At the time it was a one-man outfit, run by nominatively determined founder Tom Baker from his home in Stirchley, on the outskirts of Birmingham. Neil had been given a Loaf breadmaking class and the minute he removed his first sourdough pizza from Tom’s back-garden wood-fired oven, his love of baking was ignited. 

After several years playing with dough and improving his skills at home, Neil was offered the chance to join the then seven-person-strong Loaf co-operative. Like many career-change bakers, Neil was fed up with his office job. The 9-to-5 wasn’t the best for his mental health and he wanted a complete switch, using his hands and creating something tangible. He appreciated Loaf’s cooperative ethos, where all the members are equal in pay, responsibility and decision-making, as well as its aim to ‘build community through real food and healthy living’. It didn’t hurt that the bakery was also very near his home. So he joined, going from home baker to full-time professional in one swift move.

Learn from your mistakes

Now Neil has come full circle, teaching the same class (Bread: back to basics) he took all those years ago. “I love telling the students that. I want them to think, if he can do it, so can I. I do make it clear they won’t be forced to join the business later though,” he laughs. Neil is the perfect person to reassure nervous new bakers – he’s been there, done that and learned through plenty of mistakes.

“In our current space, we can basically have one or, at a push, two bakers in at once, so I was pretty much on my own even when I started at Loaf. It was disheartening when things went wrong. Sometimes I had to abandon a whole batch of bakes,” Neil recalls. “I remember having to dump a load of laminated pastries that didn’t work. I lost a bit of confidence, but everyone here has started basically from scratch and they’re so supportive – you quickly learn to put it behind you and keep going.”

Everybody needs good neighbours

Loaf is a close-knit business in a close-knit community. The co-op members are all locals, and locals make up many of their customers. It's this literal and conceptual grounding in the neighbourhood that means so much to Neil.

“One of the founding purposes of Loaf was to rejuvenate the high street in Stirchley – bring a bit of life back to it. We were down to a greengrocer and not much else. I think a good bakery is a great keystone for a healthy high street.” In the 12 years since Loaf opened in its current position on Pershore Road, Neil has noticed a new wave of younger people moving in to offer a greater variety of small-scale food businesses, some of whom have become collaborators and suppliers.

There’s a lot of variety in the customer base for Loaf’s bakery and cookery school too. There are the bargain hunters who come for the famous Stirchley loaf: a local favourite that’s been sold at the same price for the last 10 years – £2 for a large loaf, £1 for small. It’s a mashup of wholemeal and white flours, with some grated potato for a moister crumb, leavened using a mix of baker’s yeast and rye sourdough starter. 

Its price tag belies its deliciousness. Older customers come for bread that tastes like the loaves of their childhoods. Students come for the bestselling white sourdough to make cheese and kimchi toasties. 

At the school, classes range from basic bread-from-four-ingredients sessions for beginners, to explorations of enriched doughs for baking nerds. Guest tutors offer workshops showing how to make all kinds of good, wholesome food from scratch.

Reaching out

“This year we’ll be moving to new, larger premises, which we’ll share with other co-operative businesses, which means we will be sharing costs and have much more room to play with,” explains Neil. “Hopefully we’ll be able to do more outreach, which I’m really keen on. We’ll have a community hall to do more low-cost or free classes, reaching people we may have missed in our previous space. It’s one of the most important aspects of working at Loaf for me. I want to spread the word of Real Bread as widely as I can.” 

Balancing the books and balancing principles with practicality is a constant concern. The business runs on a tight budget but wants to use small suppliers and producers that share their ethos rather than taking the cheapest option. Neil would like to experiment more with different grains, perhaps milling on site, but after the pandemic there is limited time and money. 

During the lockdowns there were no classes, which meant less income, while the classroom space was used for other things. After things opened up again, the school never got back to full capacity. Social distancing also meant contractors couldn’t get onsite to measure up for a new oven. When it arrived, the back had to be hacksawed off to fit it in the bakery. 

Despite these setbacks, the pandemic was one of Neil’s favourite times at Loaf. “Because we usually work alone a lot of the time, getting out on my bike to deliver loaves to people in lockdown was actually a nice change. People were so glad to see me and have a chat. That’s what bread means to me – even in normal times. It’s about community. It’s why I wanted to be a Real Bread Campaign ambassador and why Loaf exists. We want to serve our community. We want to show that anyone can do this, anyone can get involved. Anyone can make bread.”

@loaf.coop @nebolland

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Originally published in True Loaf magazine issue 62, April 2025.

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