Sustain / Real Bread Campaign / Archive / News archive
2014
Breadcrumbs archive 2014
Back issues of Breadcrumbs, the Real Bread Campaign's monthly enewsletter
NB As this is an archive, some of the infomation and links given might no longer be current or correct.
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Previous years
December
As ever, I’ve tried to ensure this month’s info smörgåsbord (which loosely translates as sandwich table) reflects the broad range of interests around bread amongst our thousands of supporters and friends who subscribe to ‘Crumbs.
If you reckon there’s something lacking, then please email your news snippets and they might just appear next month…
In the meantime, I hope you have a great festive season.
UPPER CRUST
Study finds Real Bread less likely to lead to IBS symptoms
A new study, in which Campaign co-founder Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters was involved, has concluded that: "breads fermented by the traditional long fermentation and sourdough are less likely to lead to IBS symptoms compared to bread made using the Chorleywood Breadmaking Process."
Before anyone gets too excited, it should be noted that this was a small study done in vitro, rather than using human volunteers, so it can't be taken/presented as conclusive. That said, it is yet another crumb to add to the growing body of evidence to support the Campaign’s belief that there are benefits of making Real Bread using sourdough, and other long-fermentation, methods.
We renew our open challenge to government and the big milling and baking industries to fund the research that is still desperately needed.
A pressie that will keep on giving to a loved one (or you) and the Campaign
Signing a food lover up as a Campaign supporter means that they’ll not only receive four issues of True Loaf magazine in 2015, but they’ll also be eligible for exclusive competitions; discounts on ingredients, equipment and dozens of bread classes/courses; and have access to the very active Real Baker-e forum for home and professional bakers. As the 25 quid helps our charity continue running the Campaign, it’s an all-round gift.
If you are currently a Campaign friend, rather than a paid-up supporter, please do us (and yourself) a favour by joining us, in return for which you’ll get the same benefits.
MORE CRUMBS
Nearly half of parents baking with kids
A YouGov survey for RSPCA Freedom Food published last month found that 49% of parents who responded bake with their children at least once a month. A further 20% do so at least every four to six months, while a lucky 14% of children get to bake with their folks at least once a week. Let’s hope that includes Real Bread, not just sugary, fatty cakes and biscuits…
White loaf sales sliced
It appears that the inexorable slump of wrapped sliced industrial white loaf sales continues apace. “IRI data revealed that every brand saw sales plummet from the previous year. Kingsmill’s sales dropped 14.9%; Warburtons 12.2%; and Hovis 10.6%” bakeryandsnacks.com reported.
Don’t forget to use your Bake 5 discounts!
If you became a Campaign supporter (or renewed your support) this year, we sent you an email detailing how you can claim discounts from Bakery Bits, Bread Matters, Doves Farm, Marriage’s and Shipton Mill. These all expire on 31 December – use ‘em or lose ‘em!
RIP ‘Grannie’ Moon
Sad news from Whissendine Windmill: Ruth ‘Grannie’ Moon passed away recently aged 96 after a fall at the mill. In the tribute he sent to us, Campaign supporter Paul Jones says that Ruth was a miller to the end, mentioning that as recently as just a few years ago, her son Nigel had to change to using 25kg flour sacks “'cos Grannie found the 32kg bags too heavy.”
MAKING DOUGH FROM BREAD
Environmental health inspections
A note posted in The Real Baker-e forum for Campaign supporters has prompted this reminder: environmental health officers don’t just visit bakeries, they can swing by stalls at markets and events, too. If in doubt about food safety regulations, please contact the EHO at your local authority, as it’s his/her interpretation of the law that counts locally.
New food labelling regs
On a similar note, please make sure you have got your head around the new Food Information Regulations, which come into force this month. The bit that will apply to all Real Bread bakeries is allergen labelling/advice.
END CRUST
Even if, like me, you don’t speak Turkish, this sourdough film looks lovely. I’m taking it on trust he’s not of the ‘sod it, let’s use sourdough powder and baker’s yeast’ persuasion…
November
How’s tricks? Good, I hope.
Here in the office I’m busy with funding applications to help secure the future of our work, and pulling together the next issue of True Loaf magazine for our ever-growing merry band of paid-up supporters.
This is on top of the ongoing promotion of Real Bread’s rightful place at the hearts of our local communities; championing small, indie, slow dough bakeries; keeping our call for an Honest Crust Act on the agenda; and challenging all of the other things that stand in the way of the rise of Real Bread.
Out there…well, please read on for an idea of what’s happening.
THE UPPER CRUST
Give the gift of loaf!
Sorry to mention the C word so early in November, but in our defence, there are all that many shopping weeks left until the big day. So, the triple gift (a pressie for a loved one, a few more very welcome quid in the Campaign kitty, and warm and fuzzies for you for ticking both of those off) is a year’s subscription to True Loaf. In addition to four issues of our fine magazine, they’ll also be eligible for the full range of supporter benefits, including discounts on ingredients, equipment and baking classes around the UK. It’s also a gift to our charity Sustain to help it keep running the Campaign.
Win
Thanks to Leaping Hare Press, we have a copy of The Art of Mindful Baking by Campaign supporter Juila Ponsonby, who is head of food at Schumacher College, to give away. In it, she shares recipes, but more importantly explores the value of mental focus and using your hands in baking. Campaign supporters can turn to page 4 of the current True Loaf for details of how to enter the competition.
New supporter discounts
Thanks to Veg Patch Kitchen in Shropshire, Wild Bread in Kent and Wild Yeast Bakery online, the latest of more than fifty baking schools offering a discount to Campaign supporters. Thanks also to Cocoa & Heart, which is offering Campaign supporters 25% off a residential Real Bread baking holiday for eight bakers she’s running next March.
MORE CRUMBS
Real Bread uprising 2015
Thanks to the 200+ of you who took part in our survey. Your responses will help us plan the event, which we hope to be able to hold in the spring. We will, of course, keep Campaign supporters updated through The Real Baker-e and True Loaf, and all of you through Breadcrumbs.
Vote now
Up for awards and in need of votes this time round are Campaign co-founder Andrew Whitley’s Scotland The Bread project, and Francesca Barker’s social enterprise for ex-offenders, The Barker Baker. There are also a whole slew of Campaign supporters in the running for the British Cookery School Awards, and the cookery schools and baking class categories of the Looking to Cook awards.
Winners
Congratulations to Campaign supporters Two Magpies Bakery and Baked in Derby who were both named runners up in this year’s Observer Food Monthly Awards; and to Campaign supporter Lazaro Artisan Bakery, which was crowned London’s Best bakery by The BBC Good Food Bakes & Cakes Show.
MAKING DOUGH FROM BREAD
Advertise
We are now able to offer companies the opportunity to promote their wares, be that flour, ingredients, baking equipment, classes, or whatever (well, within reason….you won’t be seeing white sliced pap) directly to our supporters through True Loaf. In turn, advertising to some of the most passionate breadheads around will help our charity to keep producing the magazine. To find out more, please drop us a line.
Head baker opportunity
Olivia’s Artisan Foods Limited are looking for Head Baker. He or she will be responsible not only for management of this Real Bread bakery, but also overseeing its growth, and assisting with its social enterprise therapeutic and training work with Clervaux Trust students. Find full details here.
Bread trays/baskets
A reminder from one of our supporters: using Big Bakeries’ Omega Trays (ie the ones marked ‘property of…’) could land you in hot water. A company called Basco, which manages around 3 million trays for the big brands, even has a ‘grass’ button on its website for people to report misuse. Many Real Bread bakers won’t be eligible to join the licensing scheme, but there are other companies out there that sell them, eg Alison and Ravensbourn.
October
Thanks to everyone who got involved in Sourdough September, either by baking, teaching or trying the genuine thing for the first time. It again helped to generate plenty of media coverage nationally for the issues, and locally for bakers who got involved.
Looking ahead, we're planning to organise some sort of Real Bread get together in the spring, and need you help now deciding what will work best. Please take our quick survey - there's the chance to win one of a couple of great prizes if you do.
UPPER CRUST
WIN stuff (yes stuff!) in our survey
Fancy a Real Bread get-together? We need your help to see if there’s enough interest in a moot, and what the day should include. Please take the very quick (five minutes tops) survey here. As a sweetener, two Campaign supporters have offered great prizes: a full day’s sourdough experience with Hobbs House Bakery on 7 November; and a hamper of Real Bread kit (proving baskets, couche cloth, dough cutter etc..) from Brook Food’s online shop. Click here for details.
True Loaf issue 21
The October-December instalment of our supporters’ magazine features the chance to WIN: The Art of Mindful Baking by Julia Ponsonby. Articles include: a look at three different types of Real Bread school, a postcard on bread in Spain, a look inside Stanway Mill, what the words used to market bread and industrial loaves really mean, a recipe for a malted wheat and rye sourdough loaf.
Campaign supporters can download the PDF version of this, and back issues, here
New offers
The latest places to offer a discount off Real Bread classes to Campaign supporters are Panary in Shaftesbury, Tracebridge Sourdough in Somerset, The Fermentarium in Walthamstow, and Niël Jonker’s place in South Africa. Thanks to Paul Merry, Katie Venner, Gordon Woodcock, Simon Poffley and Niël. Meanwhile Vanessa Kimbell is giving away copies of her book (RRP £20) to supporters who take her sourdough classes. For details of these, and more than 50 other offers, please click here.
MORE CRUMBS
Real Bread winners at the World Bread Awards
Congratulations to the Real Bread Campaign supporter bakers, who together picked up the majority of the gongs at the World Bread Awards. Overall winner Peter Cook of Peter Cook’s Bread was joined on the podium by fellow Campaign supporters Jim Bishop of Two Magpies Bakery, Tom Brucciani of Brucciani, Alex Gooch of Alex Gooch Artisan Bakery, Fergus Jackson of Brick House Bread, Aidan Monks of Lovingly Artisan and Dominic Salter of Bath Road Bakes. Read more here.
Sourdough’s not just for September
Thanks to everyone who helped put the focus squarely on sourdough Real Bread last month. It was great to hear of people trying and enjoying the genuine article for the first time, bakers passing on their knowledge (and starters) to others, and independent Real Bread bakers taking the opportunity to get attention for their businesses, the Campaign and Real Bread in general via local media outlets. You can find highlights of the local and national coverage the initiative generated here.
Real Bread: The Movie
Tartine baker and author Chad Robertson, and food issues journalist Michael Pollan are amongst the many contributors to forthcoming film the Grain Divide. We confess we know little about it, but from the trailer it looks like it’ll be our kinda movie…
Apple appeal
If you’re lucky enough to have surplus fruit growing in your back yard, our friends over at the Thoughtful Bread Company in Bath are running a bartering scheme, where fruit (particularly apples, pears, plums and quinces) can be exchanged for Real Bread! Contact them on 01225 471747 for more information.
Vote for London bakers
Campaign supporters Better Health Bakery, Brick House and Spence Bakery are amongst the entrants in the Urban Food Awards. Londoners who vote now could win a pair of tickets to the gala awards bash on 4 December at Whole Foods Market in Kensington. Vote before 31 October 2014 here.
Good luck!
..to Francesca, The Barker Baker. Having won Best Female Entrepreneur in the Spirit of Small Business Awards, is now in the running for the competition’s overall Outstanding Small Business of the Year gong. If you’d like to help her out, you can vote here.
MAKING DOUGH FROM BREAD
Advertise in True Loaf
Do you offer a product or service that would be of interest to domestic or professional bakers? Our supporters are some of the most passionate breadheads in the land, and now we’re planning to offer the opportunity to showcase your wares to them in the magazine. If this might be of interest, please drop us a line and we’ll send you the rates and other details.
Real Bread job opportunity
Baker Tom’s is currently looking for an experienced artisan baker to join their growing team, based at their bakery in Pool, Cornwall. Please send your C.V. and a covering letter to jobs [at] bakertom.co.uk if interested.
END CRUST
Following in the footsteps of the likes of Richard Bertinet and Chris Young, Peter Cook picked up the baton for a Real Bread rant on the Rude Health soapbox at this year’s Abergavenny Food Festival.
September
It’s Sourdough September!
The ninth month of the year is when the Real Bread Campaign goes on a mission to help everyone discover that: life’s sweeter with sourdough!
Across thirty days of sharing food, facts and fun, Real Bread bakeries, baking schools, mills and food festivals around the UK and beyond will be running sourdough classes, tastings, feasts and more.
On top of this, thanks to Campaign supporter the School of Artisan Food, we have a great prize to give away.
For these, and loads more crumbs, please read on.
UPPER CRUST
Knockin’ on leaven’s door
The simple aim of Sourdough September is to encourage more people to buy genuine sourdough Real Bread from a local, independent bakery, or bake their own at home. Campaign supporters and friends helping to spread the leaven love this month include:
- Champions in Hobbs House Bakery’s quest to find #KingOfTheSourdough will win a class with their expert team
- Sourjoe September at Joe’s Bakery in Bristol, with tastings, classes, Q&A sessions and a new loaf launched.
- The Loaf in Crich, Derbyshire, is creating nine new sourdough Real Breads during the month.
- Brick House in Peckham is running Sourdough Starter for 10, giving away a pot of starter and one of their award-winning loaves every week.
- Paul Brennan in Cardiff will be giving away loaves from his wood-fired microbakery’s oven to the first 32 neighbours who email to ask for one.
…plus sourdough Real Bread classes all over the place. For details of these and many more activities around the country, please visit our events calendar.
For all sorts of tasty bits and bobs about sourdough, click here.
WIN!
The School of Artisan Food are offering their fellow Real Bread Campaign supporters the chance to win a place on their introductory two-day wild yeast and sourdough course with Campaign ambassador Emmanuel Hadjiandreou on 25 & 26 October. Five runners up will receive a copy of Campaign cofounder Andrew Whitley's latest book, Do Sourdough from The Do Book Company. To enter, you just need to answer a simple question.
- If you are a Campaign supporter, you can enter here.
- If you haven’t yet made the jump from Campaign friend to supporter, you can find out how (and many more reasons why) to take that step here.
MORE CRUMBS
Real Bread in abundance at Aldeburgh
September is a big month for local food festivals and thankfully, more and more seem to be incorporating Real Bread into their programmes – see our events calendar to see who’s added details of theirs. Rising above all others we’ve seen this year is Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival, at which a wood-fired Festival Bakery will pop up on 27 and 28 September to bake Real Bread and host classes and talks. Guests include ‘Danish Delia’ Trine Hahnemann; Chris Brennan of BBC Food & Farming Awards winner Pump Street Bakery (aided and abetted by Chris Young from Campaign HQ); David Wright of The Cake Shop, winner of Britain’s Best Bakery on ITV; and E5 Bakehouse founder Ben MacKinnon.
WIN more!
One lucky winner in our current True Loaf magazine competition will bag Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding by Justin Gellatly; Baking Together by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou; The Pocket Bakery by Rose Prince; and Do Sourdough: slow bread for busy lives by Andrew Whitley. Find more details here.
THE ASK
We knead YOU!
Currently, dough from supporters is the ONLY income our charity Sustain receives to continue of our mission of championing Real Bread and the people putting it at the hearts of our local communities. If you are a paid-up supporter - thank you!
If not but you want to see us continue fighting this corner, helping to join-the-dots between everyone who cares, running initiatives like Sourdough September, campaigning for labelling transparency and long-fermentation research, producing this emailer, publishing True Loaf magazine, organising discounts and competitions, and all the other stuff we do, please dig into your pockets today! Fear not, we’re not asking for an excavation, more a casual trowelling – the discounted basic rate works out to less than £2 a month. Read more and sign up here.
If you are a supporter already, and fancy making an extra donation, you can do so here.
What’s in it for you
Current benefits on offer to help us say thank you to paid-up Campaign supporters totally outweigh even the lowest annual contribution level. They include discounts on ingredients and equipment from Bakery Bits, Bread Matters, Doves Farm, Marriage’s and Shipton Mill; money off more than 50 baking classes/courses; the exclusive quarterly magazine True Loaf; access to The Real Baker-e online forum; a third off microbakery book Knead to Know; and supporters at higher levels can get a Tom Chandley deck oven at less than half price. Added thousands of pounds worth of prizes we’ve given away, what are you waiting for? Find our more and join us here.
Christmas competition prizes needed
Each year, we pull together a bumper hamper of prizes for the festive edition of our True Loaf competition. As well as being seen in the magazine by some of the most passionate Real Breadheads around, we will promote this to our wider network of around 9000 friends in this ‘ere enewsletter, and on our website. If you have something you’d like to offer as a prize, please contact Chris this week: realbread [at] sustainweb.org
August
Happy Lammas! Yes, today is the traditional date for this ancient festival celebrating the first harvest.
This month, we’re particularly grateful to Tom Chandley ovens for a great offer to help us say thank you to professional bakers who support us…and perhaps encourage a few more to add their support. As part of a small, independent charity, we rely heavily on your contributions from to allow us to keep championing Real Bread and its bakers.
UPPER CRUST
Supporter exclusive HALF PRICE offer on Tom Chandley deck ovens
The nice people at Tom Chandley are offering fellow professional Real Bread Campaign supporters the chance to buy a factory reconditioned, six tray capacity, three deck Compacta oven (model 3-2-8) with 12 month warranty and free delivery for just £4300, a saving of MORE THAN 50% of the RRP of a new one! For full details, click here.
Additives: the nation’s second greatest food safety concern
Artificial additives are Britain’s second greatest concern about food safety, according to a Food Standards Agency report. Published in July, the latest edition of the FSA’s Public Attitudes Tracker found that ‘the use of additives in food product’s was a concern for 28% of nearly 2,500 adults surveyed, second only to ‘food hygiene when eating out’ and equal to ‘food poisoning’. Read more here.
Another reason to choose organic Real Bread
On 17 July, our friends at Pesticides Action Network (PAN UK) published a report that reinforces our message that, to avoid unnecessary substances in your daily loaf, your best bet is to choose Real Bread that is also made using organic ingredients. You can read our reaction to the report, and a link to the research behind it, here. https://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/blog/#pan_report
Life’s sweeter with sourdough!
Time’s run out to finish fermenting your plans for next month’s wild yeast wingding and post details of your Sourdough September event on our calendar. To help you promote your event locally, we have included a template media release here.
MORE CRUMBS
Buttle’s BIG Bake
Buttle UK needs you to host your own baking party. The money you raise will go directly to providing cookers for Britain’s poorest families enabling them to cook hot, fresh meals for their children. Send a photo of your bake’s winning entry and you could win a Kenwood Kitchen Machine in a competition being judges by baker and cook Lorraine Pascale. Find out more and register for your starter pack here.
Public/media relations and marketing guide
We’ve just published a guide exclusively for Campaign supporters that we hope newer (and some of the older) Real Bread bakeries / enterprises will find useful. It touches on a number of elements of the marketing mix, before focussing on media relations. Click here.
Time is running out to enter…
…The World Bread Awards, which is open for professional and home bakers to enter until 31 August. They include a Real Bread Campaign category, and more or less all of the awards were won by Campaign supporters last year. Also closing on 31 August are entries and public votes for London’s Best Bakery, being run by The BBC Good Food Bakes and Cakes Show.
MAKING DOUGH FROM BREAD
Don’t ditch your dough!
London-based SME bakeries: want help getting on top of your wastage, find good homes for any leftover loaves, and maybe even save money? Get in touch with FoodSave. This project will provide free support , helping you to measure and reduce food waste and divert surplus food to good purposes, such as feeding people in need. Larger bakeries may be able to sell surplus baked goods as livestock feed. FoodSave is already working with Ruben’s Bakehouse, Olivier’s Bakery and Bread Ahead. If you’d like to join them, contact Charlotte on charlotte [at] sustainweb.org or 0203 5596 777.
Urban Food Routes
London Food Link, a sibling project here at the charity Sustain, is involved in two initiatives supported by The Mayor of London that might be of interest to Real Bread bakers. The first is the Urban Food Awards, which will crown the capital’s chow champions – you have until 29 August to enter.
The second is Urban Food Fortnight, fourteen days from 12-28 September of feasting on the fabulous ultra-local food being grown, produced and cooked in the city. Post details of your shindig here. If you want to offer to supply an event, or need help finding another enterprise to collaborate with, email eloise [at] sustainweb.org
July
Looking back for a mo, June saw two Real Bread victories. The big one was over in Oz, where the highest court in the land ruled that a supermarket’s marketing of bake off loaves as ‘fresh’ was ‘false, misleading and deceptive.’
A much lesser victory, but a win nonetheless, in the battle for greater labelling transparency here in the UK is that ‘token nutrients’ added to most UK milled flour will now have to appear on labels. It’s just a shame that the government didn’t implement the rest of our Honest Crust Act proposals while they were at it…
Looking ahead, the new True Loaf will be winging its way to supporters over the next week, packed with its usual mix of features, prizes and discounts.
Oh, and if you're a baker, we need to know your Sourdough September plans asap, please.
PS – If you think it’s all a bit ‘southern’ this month, please help me change things next time by letting me know what’s going on round your way!
The Upper Crust
Federal Court rumbles the Great Australian Fake Off
On 18 June, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Australian Federal Court had ruled that supermarket chain Coles marketing bake-off goods as 'Baked Today, Sold Today' or 'Freshly Baked In-Store' was ‘false, misleading and deceptive.’ Some of the products, which are merely finished off in the chain’s loaf tanning salons, were in fact made as far away as Ireland. You can read the full article here.
While in the UK…
Sadly, earlier the same week, DEFRA circulated draft guidance to the new EU Food Information Regulations, which we believe demonstrates the UK government has no intention of giving British shoppers such protection from similar marketing. Despite a full overhaul of the law, the only element of our proposed Honest Crust Act being implemented is that the four ‘token nutrients’ added to most UK milled flour will now have to appear on the label of flour and goods made using it…though this still doesn’t apply to the likes of supermarket in-store ‘bakery’ loaves. Read more here.
Win half a bookshelf of bready tomes!
Well, assuming you have a shelf that’s eight books wide. The brand new issue of our supporters’ magazine True Loaf includes the chance to win Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding by Justin Gellatly; Baking Together by Campaign ambassador Emmanuel Hadjiandreou; The Pocket Bakery by Rose Prince; and Do Sourdough: slow bread for busy lives by Campaign cofounder Andrew Whitley. For more details click here.
More crumbs
Save!
The new True Loaf also includes discount codes to allow you to get two tickets for the price of one to The Cake & Bake Show, and save 20% tickets to the new BBC Good Food Bakes and Cakes Show, both of which will be held in London in October. Supporters who don’t have the magazine to hand can download the PDF version here.
Real Bread on the school menu?
The School Food Regulations 2014 come into effect in England in January 2015. It's great that they will recognise the importance of ‘bread’ but sadly they don't guarantee all children will be eating Real Bread with every meal. Read more here.
New Real Bread class/course discounts
Yet more lovely people have started offering discounts to Real Bread Campaign supporters. Thanks this month to Paul Merry at Panary and to Bake With Jack. Find details of these offers and more than 50 others here.
Local Loaves for Lammas
Everyone who has been following our work for a year or more will know that 1 August marks the ancient harvest festival of Lammas. This year, we’ve set bakers and shoppers the challenge: How Lo(cal) Can You Go? Find more details and search for (or add) events in your neck of the woods here.
Making dough from dough
The search for London’s Best Bakery is on
…so let’s make sure it’s a Real Bread bakery that wins! The BBC Good Food Bakes and Cakes Show is on a mission to find and crown London's Best Bakery. Bakeries making goodies from scratch within the M25 can nominate themselves and encourage all of their customers, suppliers, friends, family and pets (okay, probably not pets) to nominate them, too. Anyway, you can find full details here.
Sourdough September
The natural leaven process may be slow but opportunities to get widespread media coverage for the annual celebration of sourdough are running out fast! Journalists work a long way ahead and have started asking ‘so, what’s going on?’ already. If you want to help make this national fermentative fiesta a success, please add details of your event to our calendar NOW! You can find ideas here.
Baker needed for Regent’s Park harvest festival
On 21 September, The Allotment Garden Harvest Festival will celebrate the growing year with great food cooked fresh from the garden and activities all day. The team is looking for a volunteer Real Bread baker/ chef to help create and cook a nice, simple menu based on what is growing in the garden and run pizza making sessions for kids using a woodfired clay oven. To find out more please contact: julie [at] sustainweb.org
You can see snaps of chef Ollie Rowe, baker Vincent Talleu and the gang at the 2010 do here.
Independent Retailer Month
This annual campaign that runs throughout July aims to ‘highlight the important role smaller, local, independent retailers play in the communities they serve, the local economy they contribute to, and in the retail sector as a whole.’ You can find ideas of how your indie Real Bread bakery can get involved, and free POS stuff to download, here.
June
The Campaign goes from strength to strength.
The continuing rise in membership, given an extra boost by last month’s Real Bread Maker Week, means that the Real Bread Campaign has more capacity to fight for our cause. In plain English, we’re now a day closer to running it full time again.
To everyone who has dug their hands in their pockets to help make this happen or made themselves hoarse telling people about our work – thank you!
So, here as always is some of the latest news from the world of Real Bread. If you have something you’d like us to help share, please drop me a line and you might see it here in a future edition of ‘crumbs, on Twitter or even in our True Loaf magazine.
Happy baking!
The Upper Crust
Real Bread Maker Week wrap up
Thanks to everyone who got involved and for the money some of you raised – thanks Manna From Devon and Balcony Shirts for sending the dough in. We hope you all had fun. Please email any photos you took of your Real Bread Maker Week event/activity that we have permission to use online and in print to show people what the Campaign is about. If your event/activity was featured by local press or other media, please send us a link. realbread [at] sustainweb.org
Housing association uses its loaf
Thanks to Spectrum Housing Group’s Use Your Loaf initiative, more than 200 residents and staff members across the south west have learned to bake Real Bread. Not only have they found how easy, cheap and rewarding it is, but also had opportunities to meet and make friends with other members of their local communities. We would love to see more housing associations do this same! Read more here.
New discounts
The latest places to offer 10% off Real Bread classes to Campaign members are River Cottage and Anna’s Kitchen in Brighton. For details of these and more than 50 other offers, click here.
More crumbs
Event organiser intern needed
To organise the next, long-overdue, chance to meet fellow breadheads, hear from some of the country’s leading experts and help shape the future of the Campaign, Chris needs a hand. If you have experience of pulling together events for 300+ people and might be interested in volunteering, please click here for details.
Send us the dough
If you ran a fundraising event or activity during Real Bread Maker Week and haven’t yet sent to us what you raised, please could you this week?
- For amounts under £100, please send a cheque: made payable to SUSTAIN (rather than the Real Bread Campaign) and sent to us at Sustain, Development House, 56 - 64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT
- For amounts over £100, please email and we’ll send you our bank details to arrange a transfer
Congratulations
…to Time Bakery, which was named Best Food Retailer of the Year in the Wakefield Retail Awards and East Bristol Bakery for their Best Bakery gong at the Bristol Good Food Awards. If you’re a Campaign member and win something, please let us know so we can help you share the news.
Welcome back!
Campaign members with good news for people in Bath, Herne Hill and Ledbury, respectively: The Bertinet Bakery has a new shop in town, Kindred Bakery has reopened after last year’s burst water main flood, and now Peter Cooks Bread at the foot of the Malvern Hills.
Have you opened or reopened a Real Bread bakery recently? Drop us a line and we might give you a shout in a future ‘crumbs.
Making dough from dough
Coming soon…
Our two remaining major national events this year are Local Loaves for Lammas (1 August) and Sourdough September. Both are designed as opportunities to promote not only the Campaign and Real Bread in general, but also the people who dedicate their lives to making it and teaching other people to bake…that’ll be you, then. The sooner more of you add details of your events to our calendar, the better the chances in seeing Real Bread in papers, magazines and beyond.
Toast modernism
The Modernist Cuisine team have announced their new project will be The Art and Science of Bread. Nathan Myhrvold welcomes Francisco Migoya as head chef and Peter Reinhart as assignments editor to this project, with hopes that ‘by revealing the history, science, and techniques of baking bread, we will create an in-depth multivolume set of books that will be useful and accessible to amateur home bakers, passionate bread enthusiasts, restaurants, and small-scale bakeries alike.’ If you have a burning question about this project, or would like to contribute your expertise, you can email breadcontributions [at] modernistcuisine.com
End Crust
We usually go for something amusing. This month’s would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. This report is yet another demonstration that we need healthy eating lessons (including baking Real Bread) in all schools NOW!
May
It’s here!
Yes, it’s been fermenting since the end of Sourdough September last year, and now Real Bread Maker Week, THE annual celebration of the genuine article and its makers, is ready to come out of the oven this Saturday!
Around the land bakers, baking teachers, millers and other folks will be helping everyone else to enjoy delicious Real Bread, honouring and supporting people who get their digits doughy, and encouraging the nation to bake a loaf. Or three.
To help you get dressed for the occasion, our chums at Balcony Shirts will be selling a limited edition charity Real Bread apron during May only, with £3 from each one sold going to the Campaign.
And if you’re in and around London, would be great to see you at the Crumbs in the Capital do being hosted by Bread Ahead next Friday.
For these crumbs and more, please read on…
Happy baking,
Chris
PS – If you’re one of about 7000 people on our mailing list who don’t currently support our work, one of the first things you can do is JOIN US! Membership is open to everyone and starts from less than £2 a month.
THE UPPER CRUST
Real Bread Maker Week
From a woodfired make and bake at Manna From Devon in Kingswear; to a Real Bread tasting at Mill Green’s working Watermill in Hatfield; to a guide to setting up a microbakery from Cocoa & Heart in Bexleyheath; to breadmaking on a boat aboard the Bakin Butty in Hinkley; and plenty more in between, there is opportunity for everyone to get doughing for Real Bread Maker Week, which runs from 10-16 May.
Out west, East Bristol Bakery, Joe’s Bakery, Hart’s Bakery, and Mark’s Bread will be showcasing the upper crust of Bristol Bread City; while at Borough Market in London, Dough Anarchist Aidan Chapman and Campaign coordinator Chris Young will be joining Bread Ahead’s Matt Jones at his bakery to host an evening of Real Bread chat and tasting…and maybe a beer. Read all about the week here.
Limited edition charity aprons
Having raised more than £1300 for the Campaign from the sale of exclusive t-shirts last year, this time round the nice people at Balcony Shirts are aiming to beat that with a limited edition Real Bread apron. Only available until the end of May, the one-size apron is available in brown, white and dark blue for just £15 (plus £3 p+p), of which £3 will help fund our work. Buy yours at balconyshirts.co.uk
MORE CRUMBS
One bakery that’s getting more co-operative...
Campaign member Cat Lane Bakery in Sheffield has become an independent co-operative. The bakers at the 108 year-old bakery have clubbed together to take over the business, which supplies shops and cafés across the city with Real Bread, cakes and pies.
Britons not eating enough bread, but throwing more than plenty of 'bread' away
The latest edition of the Food Statistics Pocketbook from Defra reports that as a nation we’re eating less than 60% of the recommended amount of ‘bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods’. Considering most of what they count as ‘bread’ probably isn’t even what we recognise as such, Brits are really missing out. The report also notes that the price of flour, cereals and products marketed as ‘bread’ rose by 34% between 2007 and 2013, though in 2012 were still 15% cheaper than in France. Could this cheapness be a contributory factor in the nation throwing away at least 32% of products marketed as ‘bread’ (the study didn’t even count crusts as edible…) that we bought? You can find the full report here.
New discount
The latest of more than 50 of the 100+ baking schools listed on our site that discounts to Real Bread Campaign members is Leicester Born and Bread. Thanks to Jessica Edmonds!
Vote for your favourite Real Bread bakery and baking school
…it’ll really help them, the Campaign and Real Bread in general if they win a Food & Travel magazine award! Vote here.
REAL BREAD ENTERPRISE
The Bakehouse Co-op needs YOU
The West Yorkshire cooperative is looking for fresh faced and enthusiastic breadheads to keep the folks of Hebden Bridge fed. They are searching for passionate bakers, marketing enthusiasts, admin gurus and anyone else who thinks they can devote a chunk of time to maintain the success of this little enterprise and have their say as a member of the co-op. Email: info [at] thebakehousecoop.co.uk
Artisan bakers vacancies
Award winning The Bakery Dunbar is looking for a head baker and a baker/pastry chef. “If you're interested in working in a friendly and engaging but hard working environment, and passionate about Real Bread making, we can offer you a rewarding job the most talked about community enterprise in Scotland. We're looking for candidates who are confident and competent in their craft, but willing to learn, can work in a team as well as independently, can communicate well, and importantly can add value to our enterprise.” Send your CV/portfolio with covering letter to: jobs [at] thebakerydunbar.org
Awards
As we mentioned above, winning or even reaching the finals for an award can really help a Real Bread enterprise get more business or support. Bakeries can enter the Great British Food Awards here.
END CRUST
Hat’s brilliant! No idea where you can buy these baguette bags, just spotted the pic on Twitter.
April
Only a month to go until THE big annual event: Real Bread Maker Week.
If you’ve sent us details of how you’ll be helping people to celebrate Real Bread and its makers locally, thank you.
If you haven’t please, please don’t leave it until the last minute! I always feel a right wally about now when bread lovers and journalists start to ask me what’s going on round there way and I’m forced to say ‘I still don’t know yet’…
Also from this issue onwards I’ll be trying to include even more news from our members around the country and the world. If you have news to share, please email me. Contact details below.
For these and more crumbs, please read on…
Upper Crust
Real Bread Maker Week
…will only be a ‘thing’ if our members get involved! Whether or not you’re a professional baker, you can help raise awareness locally. If you haven’t already, please visit our site for advice and ideas, then add details of what you’ll be up to between 10 and 16 May to our events calendar.
New True Loaf
Issue 19 of our exclusive magazine will be winging its way to Campaign members from later this week. As well as your chance to WIN a 100% British proving basket from Bread Stead and a copy of Victoria Harley’s Oven Ready book, features include Penny Williams’ article on ancient and heritage wheats; Claire Rolland and Alison McGrath’s tales of setting up microbakeries; The Itinerant Baker & Chef’s recipe for Jersey Royal bread; and how to get your doughy mitts on Balcony Shirts’ limited edition Real Bread apron.
More Crumbs
Bristol: Bread City
During Bristol Food Connections (1-11 May) everyone will have a chance to taste the best of Bristol’s Real Bread from bakers including Campaign members East Bristol Bakery, Hart’s Bakery, Joe’s Bakery and Mark’s Bread. Features include bakeries making their own versions of a festival loaf; cafés and restaurants coming up with festival sandwiches and all kinds of treats on toast; and you’ll have the chance to make your own Real Bread at hands-on baking classes. For details and updates of the doughy doings visit: bristolfoodconnections.com
Totally traceable toast
Kicking things off for the festival, East Bristol Bakery founder Alex Poulter will be using an unusual piece of kit to create ‘the ultimate connected loaf’: his bike. Starting at the tip of Cornwall, he’ll be peddling his way almost 300 miles across the south west back to Bristol, picking up salt from the Cornish Sea Salt Company, starter culture from fellow Campaign members Tracebridge Sourdough, organic spelt flour from Sharpham Park in Glastonbury and spring water from the Mendips en route.
Keeping it Real in Manchester
This weekend (4-6 April) a batch of Real Bread bakers will be fighting their way through the fondant toppings at The Cake & Bake Show in Manchester. For sugar-free sanity amongst the cupcakes, check out Campaign ambassadors Duncan Glendinning and Aidan Chapman, who'll be joined by Phil from Haxby Bakehouse and Paul from Flour Water Salt for sessions include starting your own bakery and 'dough anarchy'.
Loaves and Fishes
This project is encouraging people from ninety towns and villages and sixty schools around Morecambe Bay to organise community meals with fish, seafood and home-baked Real Bread in early June. A baking chain has begun with people baking a loaf and passing on yeast, sourdough leaven and recipes to someone in a neighbouring community. Organisers say ‘it’s a project run by Christian environmental groups in the region but is open to people of all faiths and none.’ To register your interest or find out more email: loavesfishes2014 [at] yahoo.co.uk
Slow dough
Our friends at Slow Food UK are offering Real Bread Campaign members one year’s individual adult Slow Food membership for £20, a saving of 20% on their standard rate. Find details of how, including the discount code, in our members’ section.
Classy new offers
Thanks to Meg’s Bakes in south Herefordshire and hall park Norfolk, who are the latest baking schools to offer discounts to their fellow members. You can find details of these classes and over 100 more here.
New blog post
Tying in with our Together We Rise plans, Campaign member Liz Sienna of Just Bread in south London writes about how the Real Bread social enterprise she set up is helping refugee women to develop skills for employment, gain confidence and improve their English. Click here.
Am I a Campaign member?
Not everyone on our free Breadcrumbs mailing list is. Two dead giveaways as to whether or not you are a current member: if you receive our True Loaf magazine over the next few weeks, then you ARE. If instead you receive an email from us encouraging you to join the Campaign or renew your membership, it’s because you AREN’T at the mo.
Real Bread enterprise
World Bread Awards
Entries are now open for the World Bread Awards 2014, which is open to professionals and amateurs, young and not so young. The success of Campaign members, who all but swept the board last year, will be a tough act to follow but we know you like a challenge. The fourteen awards up for grabs include Real Bread (though of course we can’t see why any baker would use artificial additives in any of the other categories, either!), sourdough, home baker and young baker. Read more and enter here.
Baking Industry Awards 2014
Another opportunity to demonstrate that the best bakers are Real Bread bakers. Campaign members triumphing last year were Peter Cook and his crew at Prices in Ludlow, the team at Speciality Breads and Julian Carter at Hambleton Bakery, who was crowned Baker of the Year. Find out more and enter here.
Star recruiters
Top of the table this month are Duncan Glendinning of The Thoughtful Bread Company and Jo Bottrill of Jo’s Loaves in Luton thanks to their sign up schemes, where they include a year’s membership in baking class prices. Also jostling for position on the league table of how new members heard about us amongst Twitter, Radio 4’s Food programme and ‘the internet’ are Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters, Phil and co at Haxby Bakehouse, and Stephanie and the crew at The Bakers Table. Thank you all.
Real Bread job vacancy
Campaign member Le Petit Prince Patisserie in Westbourne, Bournemouth is looking for an experienced artisan baker to join their team. The applicant must have hand moulding skills, experience working with sourdoughs and very soft doughs. This is a full time role eight hours a day, five days a week) including nights/ early mornings. Please send your CV to: michael.russell120 [at] ntlworld.com
What’s YOUR news?
On our mission to big up the little bakers, we invite you to take this monthly opportunity to help Campaign members share their news with their fellow members and the rest of the 9000 or so Real Bread lovers on our mailing list. Please email a short paragraph (like the ones here so Chris doesn’t have to edit it much, if at all), including a link to where people can find more details to us: realbread [at] sustainweb.org
End Crust
Chris wants one: Darth Vader toaster
March
This weekend we launched Bake 5, which is such great news I’m dedicating most of this issue of ‘crumbs to it.
‘nuff said.
THE UPPER CRUST
Bake 5
We have just launched Bake 5, a brilliant new package of discounts from five of the leading suppliers of flour and equipment to Britain’s domestic and small, independent bakers. Everyone joining the Campaign or renewing his/her membership from 1 March until the end of the year will be eligible for the following:
- Bakery Bits - £5 off
- Bread Matters - £10 off
- Doves Farm – 3 FREE 1kg bags of artisan range flour
- Marriage’s - 10% off
- Shipton Mill - 10% off
Together, these offers represent a saving of more than the annual Campaign membership fee.
All current Campaign members are also still eligible for a range of other offers, including discounts at more than 40 baking schools, quarterly issues of True Loaf and more…
Read full details of the new offers here.
Why?
We’re very grateful to the companies making these generous offers to their fellow Campaign members as right now membership fees and donations are the only income that Sustain, the charity that runs the Campaign, receives to be able to keep doing so. YOUR membership fees will help us to:
- Run a new project called Together We Rise to help thousands of people living with mental health issues and facing a range of other challenges to benefit from the therapeutic, social and employment opportunities Real Bread making offers.
- Build on our work to date championing locally-produced Real Bread and its bakers.
- Continue challenging the issues we see as obstacles to the rise of Real Bread.
MORE CRUMBS
Best in dough
Congratulations to David and Lindsay Wright and the rest of the team at Campaign member The Cake Shop Bakery in Suffolk, who were named Britain’s Best Bakery by the eponymous ITV1 series. They follow in the footsteps of fellow Campaign member The Hambleton Bakery, which claimed the title last year.
Being Thoughtful
Thank you to Campaign ambassador Duncan Glendinning, who is using his brand new bakery in the heart of Bath as a Real Bread Campaign membership recruitment centre. Everyone who takes a class at The Thoughtful Bakery School is encouraged to join, with one year’s membership fee included in the price. Read more here.
Members’ news and photos, please
Chris is working on the next issue of True Loaf magazine this week and wants YOUR stories! If you’re a member, please send us a short paragraph of a recent achievement, award you’ve won, stuff you’ve just started (or are about to start) and you might see it in the next issue. We’re also after interesting recent photos (not just breadporn, though, thanks) we can use in the gallery. Please see previous issues to get the gist of both.
Email to realbread [at] sustainweb.org
Bakery spaces needed
We often get queries from Campaign members who need space to set up or expand their Community Supported Bakeries, Real Bread social enterprises, community bread making classes, microbakeries etc. Members can add/look for details of spaces to rent out (or even loan/borrow) in The Real Baker-e. Non-members offering help, please email the details to realbread [at] sustainweb.org and we'll post them in our members' forum for you. Read more here.
Real Bread Maker Week
Please don’t wait for our intern Rena to call – let us know your plans for the week (10-16 May) TODAY! Add details of classes and other events to our calendar here and email offers or fundraising plans to us at: realbread [at] sustainweb.org
Media coverage
We’re always getting asked by media types for examples of one sort of baker or another and always put forward a few members’ names who fit the bill when we can – keep an eye on The Real Baker-e for the calls we put out. One member’s story that made it to the screen is that of Birch Cottage Bread founder Lucy Steele, who appeared on James Martin’s Home Comforts. Find this, and more Real Bread media coverage we have secured, here.
End crust
February
Once again I have to say thank you to all of you who have taken the step from reading this free enewsletter to supporting us by joining us – we’ve had a great response. An extra special thanks goes to those of you who are doing your bit to encourage other people to join.
Right now, while we continue to seek grant funding, it is only because of our paying members that the charity Sustain is able to carry on running the Campaign.
As I have said before, we have great plans for a new project but need the dough to do it!
In the meantime, I’m about to start working in earnest towards Real Bread Maker Week 2014. This is the annual celebration of the genuine thing and it makers, when we all pull together to encourage more people to buy local loaves, or get baking their own.
For these and more crumbs, please read on…
Upper crust
Real Bread Maker Week – time to get planning
For the fifth year running, May sees the Real Bread Campaign running the annual, high-profile celebration of Real Bread and its makers. In order for this to get the media, and therefore the public, attention it deserves, we need as many of you to GET INVOLVED NOW! For ideas of what you can do to raise awareness, and cash for the Campaign, please click here.
Membership continues to rise
This year has got off to a cracking start with 62 of you joining the Campaign and another 76 renewing your memberships. Right now, it’s only thanks to you and your fellow paying members that the Real Bread Campaign still exists.
Join today!
If you’re not a member, please, please join us! As we’re finding, depending on finding grant funding is not sustainable, and the ability to return to running the Campaign on a full-time basis (Sustain can only keep one member of staff on two days a week at the moment) largely relies on attracting many more members.
New member discount
The incentive to join the Campaign continues to grow. The latest comes from Brook Bakery School in Somerset, who offer classes for domestic and professional bakers. For details of this discount, and around forty more at baking schools around the UK, click here.
More crumbs
Dough raised
Congratulations to Campaign members the Hornbeam Bakers Collective in Walthamstow who, thanks in part to a successful crowdfunding campaign, are moving to a new home. Previously operating as a network of home-based microbakers who ran workshops at The Hornbeam Café, the collective will now have their own dedicated space at Blackhorse Workshop. As well as continuing to bake loaves for sale at local markets and offer affordable Real Bread making classes for local people, the move will allow new projects including a community café, event catering and offering learning opportunities for would-be professional bakers.
Making dough from bread
Baker wanted
Campaign member B arts are working to establish a Community Supported Bakery at the heart of a new arts space in Stoke on Trent. They’re looking for a passionate, experienced Real Bread baker with a good commercial sense and enthusiasm about working with people new to baking to help shape the project. If you might be interested, have a look at their website and Facebook page, then email Susan Clarke at info [at] b-arts.org.uk
Dough raisers
Thank you to Tom and the gang at Loaf in Stirchley, who take donations for leftover loaves and so far have collected £82 for the Campaign by doing so. Thanks also to Phil and co. at Haxby Bakehouse, who have set up a Campaign collection tin and started donating the 3p they charge any customer who asks for a carrier bag. In addition to charging £1 for each reusable ‘bag for loaf’ they sell, they’ve raised £35 for us in just the past few weeks. Meanwhile, Community Chef Robin Van Creveld raised £50 at Seedy Sunday Brighton and Jo Bottrill (see last month's 'crumbs) signed up half a dozen new members in January alone.
Urban Food Routes to business mentoring and support
Sustain (the charity that runs the Campaign) is a partner in Urban Food Routes, a forthcoming project from the Mayor of London. Urban Food Routes will offer funding and expert advice to help food enterprises that are making positive differences in their local communities. If you’re running or planning a Real Bread bakery (or other small, local food enterprise) in London and would like to be kept up to date with the latest info, including launch details, please email Monica the Plunkett Foundation who’ll add you to the Urban Food Routes mailing list: monica.dolan [at] plunkett.co.uk
And please let her know that the Real Bread Campaign sent you!
Promotional postcards
If you’re a Campaign member running a bakery, mill, shop or baking school, one of the easiest ways you can help our membership drive is to pop our fab Real Bread postcards (see image above) on your counter. To order a free wodge of the cards when Chris does a mailout this month, please add your details here.
End crust
As if you need them, here are seventeen reasons to fill up on bread.*
* Real Bread, naturally…
January
The year has only just begun but we’re hitting the ground running with the brand new issue of our exclusive True Loaf magazine going out to Campaign members this week.
In the post to members that requested them are our brand new promotional postcards to encourage more people to join us. Until we secure new grant funding, the only money Sustain (the charity of which we are part) has to run the Campaign comes from membership fees and donations, so getting new members is more important than ever to ensure our survival.
The lack of dough also means that right now, Sustain is only able to keep me on the Campaign two days a week, so sorry if you’re missing any of the things I’ve had to cut back on doing and if you get in touch please bear with me if I take a bit longer than I’d like to respond.
And if you’re one of more than 8000 people who receive this enewsletter but STILL haven’t become a member, PLEASE JOIN US NOW to help ensure the Campaign’s survival!!!
Anyway, happy baking!
Upper Crust
True Loaf 18
Features of the brand-new issue of our members-only magazine include: Mark Wilkinson’s story of how Real Bread has helped his recovery from stroke; Community Supported Bakery, Homebaked in Liverpool by Steven Croft; Matt Fountain’s social enterprise bakery for ex-offenders in Glasgow; Kim Swan on Real Bread in the City of Steel; Jarkko Laine takes us to get a glimpse of Real Bread in Finland; Tamás Németh reports from his bagel bakery and café in Budapest; Dan Harris gets doughing in Oxford; Sarah Bentley shares how her charity runs healthy breadmaking lessons for local people in Hackney; a Moroccan flatbread recipe from The Itinerant Baker & Chef; plus another fab poster. To get your copy this, and every, quarter JOIN US NOW!
Campaign members can download the PDF version here.
Real Bread get together
A date for the diaries of all you Real Breadheads: Community Chef, Robin Van Creveld and the Lewes Bread Club are organising a Real Bread fundraising event in Lewes on 13 March.
Expect an upbeat, interactive bread jamboree with delicious food, live music, competitions and baking demonstrations. Full details are TBC but there will be talks and demos from guests including Emmanuel Hadjiandreou, Michael Hanson, Vincent Talleu.
For updated info, keep an eye on our events calendar and Twitter feeds from @realbread and @communitychef1 Advance booking via www.communitychef.org.uk
More crumbs
BBC Food & Farming Awards 2014
These awards are another great publicity opportunity for your (or your favourite) Real Bread bakery AND the Campaign, so please VOTE NOW!!! Suggested categories for bakeries are Best Food Producer or Best Food Retailer; surely it’s time that a Real Bread social enterprise or Community Supported Bakery bagged the Best Initiative in British Food award, a trophy that instead would look good with the Real Bread Campaign’s name on it. Oh, and there might be someone involved in the rise of Real Bread you reckon deserves being named Food Personality of the year.
Past Real Bread winners include: campaign member Pump Street Bakery (Best Food Producer 2012), Campaign co-founder Andrew Whitley (Judges' Special Award 2011), Campaign ambassador Richard Bertinet (BBC Food Champion, 2010), and Campaign member Alex Gooch (Best Food Producer, 2010).
A Real Bread baker’s dozen vie for Britain’s Best Bakery crown
Of the sixty bakeries in the running to follow in the footsteps of Campaign member Hambleton Bakery by claiming the title Britain’s Best Bakery in the eponymous ITV1 series, thirteen are run by Campaign members. If you use Twitter, the show (currently on every weekday afternoon at 4pm) provides a great opportunity to show your support for your favourite bakery AND the Campaign using both the #BritainsBestBakery and #RealBread hashtags! Read the full list of Real Bread contestants and their Twitter names here.
Talking of telly…
…the Campaign should be turning up on a few programmes over the next month or so, including BBC shows Rip Off Britain and The Food Inspectors and one fronted by James Martin. We don’t know the dates yet so keep an eye on The Real Baker-e, Twitter and Facebook for updates.
Slow dough
Over the weekend of February 8th and 9th, Campaign member Jane Mason of Bread Angels is running sourdough bread workshops at The Weston A. Price Foundation Annual Conference, which she wraps up with a talk on setting up your own microbakery. WAPF campaigns for wise traditions in food, farming and the healing arts, including promoting the health benefits of genuine sourdough Real Bread. Find out more and purchase tickets at: westonaprice.org/london
Making dough from dough
Luton recruiter
Thanks to Jo of Jo’s Loaves in Luton, who now offers to sign her students up as Campaign members when they book one of her Real Bread classes. If you’d like to help us by doing the same, please drop Campaign coordinator Chris Young a line for details: realbread [at] sustainweb.org
Real Bread postcards
Thanks also to the 36 Campaign members who have offered to display our new promotional postcards for customers to take from their bakeries, shops, mills and baking schools. If you’d like to help our membership drive by displaying them in yours, please click here.
Real Bread Campaign: The Real Bread Campaign finds and shares ways to make bread better for us, better for our communities and better for the planet. Whether your interest is local food, community-focussed small enterprises, honest labelling, therapeutic baking, or simply tasty toast, everyone is invited to become a Campaign supporter.
