Sustain / Real Bread Campaign / About / Our events

Real Bread Week

The annual, international celebration of additive-free bread and the people behind its rise.

17 to 25 February 2024

BAKE Real Bread BUY Real Bread BOOST our charity

What is Real Bread Week?
Get involved
Download poster and logos
Sample/template media release
Make some noise!
How was it for you?
Limited edition t-shirts aprons and mugs
Share YOUR #WeAreRealBread photos
Please remember the charity behind the hashtag!
See also

A crust you can trust

With questions and concerns gathering around ultra-processed food (UPF), the idea of the much-wasted Chorleywood Process loaf may have staled for some people. Real Bread is the delicious, nutritious and additive-free timeless original, with a bright future and trusted heritage dating back perhaps as far as around 14,400 years.

Rise of the machines

As well as celebrating making Real Bread by hand, Real Bread Week 2024 echoes its origins by inspiring people to dust off and use an underemployed bread machine, or pass it on to someone who will.

Mixing, kneading and shaping dough by hand takes very little of your time and many people find the process therapeutic. Other people discover that the answer to taking control of the food they do (and the additives they don’t) eat and feed to their families is a bread maker.

According to research carried out in 2023 for independent not-for-profit organisation Recycle Your Electricals, there might be around 1.4 million bread machines going unused in UK homes. Rather than asking anyone to shell out for a new machine, the Real Bread Campaign suggests people find a second-hand one from a trusted source, such as some charity shops or a reputable dealer that tests used electricals before selling.

As the cost of basic ingredients and energy to run a bread maker are pence, and the skill required to use one is minimal, adopting one is a very affordable and accessible way of more people being able to enjoy Real Bread.

What is Real Bread Week?

Created and run by the Real Bread Campaign since 2010, #RealBreadWeek is the annual, international celebration of Real Bread and the people behind its rise.

Buy, bake, boost

We run it to focus and brighten the spotlight on our key work of encouraging and helping people to:

BUY Real Bread from local, independent bakeries
BAKE their own Real Bread

We also rattle the collection tin a bit harder for Sustain, to BOOST the charity behind Real Bread Campaign.

Each year, bakeries, baking schools, mills, schools, care homes, youth and other community groups around the world bake special loaves and run classes and other activities.

Meanwhile countless people bake at home, some with their children other family members, colleagues or friends, and take to social media with photos of themselves with loaves they've baked or bought.

Get involved

There are plenty of ways that you (yes, YOU) can get stuck in...and maybe even raise dough for the Campaign at the same time.

Perhaps it's as simple as creating (or nominating) a special for Real Bread Week.

If you have a team, are any of the bakers from a different background to you and fancy sharing a bread from their heritage? If you go down that route, please give that baker public credit and perhaps even a bonus...

Perhaps you could organise a Real Bread:

baking class / course
pizza night
social event, bringing together friends, colleagues or neighbours to bake together; chew over what everyone made at home; or chat and eat stuff from the bakery.

See also:

Real Bread For All

Basically, as long as it's in line with the aims of Real Bread Week, whatever works for you and your business / organisation!

Add the details to our calendar

The more the merrier

Perhaps you could join forces with other Real Bread bakers or other local food/drinks producers or eateries to organise a trail, festival or feast.

How about teaming up with a local community group such as a: school or nursery, youth club, retirement home, Scouts, Guides or other youth organisation, WI, farmers' market, grain network, Slow Food group, religious community...

Make some noise!

Whatever Real Bread Week shenanigans you organise, or get involved in, please share what you do!

Tell people about it in person
Create posters using the Real Bread Week logo
Blog about it
Contact local radio, TV, websites, papers - whatever media outlets you have round your way
Post on social media. The hashtag is #RealBreadWeek and please don't forget to tag us and/or link to our website.

Campaign supporters can login to download the Real Bread Week logo and an example/template media release

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 list of best local bakeries or 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’.

If you appear in, publish or spot any Real Bread Week media coverage we missed, please do send us the link or (if it's not online) a PDF, pic or scan of the article: realbread@sustainweb.org

Limited edition t-shirts and aprons

Each year, Balcony Shirts produces a limited run of exclusive t-shirts, aprons and mugs, making a doughnation to the Real Bread Campaign for each one sold.

Read full details and buy now

Share your #WeAreRealBread photo

We launched #WeAreRealBread in 2019 to help encourage greater diversity and inclusion in the world of Real Bread. Social media is awash with photos of bread, so this hashtag is to celebrate the people behind the rise of Real Bread.

Buy or bake Real Bread
Post a photo on social media of yourself making, or with, it using #WeAreRealBread alongside other relevant hashtags

If you run a class or bakery team, see if they'd like to be in the photo, too. We also love to see cereal farmers and millers in action.

Remember, this hashtag is for use with pictures of people, not just bread!

Send us your photos

We'll be publishing a selection of #WeAreRealBread photos on our site, magazine and social media. If the copyright holder (often the photographer) and person/people pictured are happy for us to do so, please email it to realbread@sustainweb.org

Please remember the charity behind the hashtag!

It's great to see the worldwide popularity of Real Bread Week but the purpose and charity behind it often get left out.

Everyone is very welcome to join in but whenever you refer to Real Bread Week or use our hashtag (in print, social media or elsewhere), PLEASE do one or more of the following:

> Mention that it is run by the Real Bread Campaign
> Link to www.realbreadcampaign.org
> Tag us on social media
> Say how people can support our charity's work

We're @RealBreadCampaign on Instagram and Facebook, and @RealBread on Twitter.

***This especially applies to businesses / PRs using Real Bread Week in the social media / marketing of spreads, kitchen appliances or totally unrelated products/services. Give us props or keep yer hands off our hashtag!***

Buy Real Bread

It's time to kick the additive-laden industrial loaf habit and support YOUR neighbourhood's Real Bread bakery!

Small, independent, locally-owned bakeries help to:

Support more jobs per loaf for people in your local community - skilled, fulfilling jobs at that
Keep more money circulating in your local economy, helping to keep your high street alive

Some offer additional social benefits, from being a place where older people and those at risk of isolation can see a friendly face and stop for a chat, to those that are set up to offer training and employment opportunities for people facing one of a range of challenges.

Bake Real Bread

Seize the dough to take control of the food that you (and perhaps your family) enjoy!

Not only is making Real Bread great fun, it's also a very affordable way of avoiding the cocktail of additives that turn up in industrial loaf products. Some people find it therapeutic.

We're keen to see more children learning to make Real Bread, whether at home, nursery or in the classroom. It can also be a way of steering them towards healthier food - you'd be amazed at the number of children who 'don't like wholemeal' but love it when it was lovingly made by their own mitts.

NB Real Bread Week isn't about cakes or loaves raised with baking powder / soda, or just about sourdough bread. See our definition of Real Bread

Boost

The best way to support our charity's work is to join the Real Bread Campaign

You don't have to be a baker to join us - in fact, the majority of our supporters aren't bakers.

Rates (unchanged since 2009) start from £22.50 a year, that's the equivalent of LESS THAN £2 A MONTH.

Supporter benefits you'll get to enjoy include our exclusive True Loaf magazine; and special offers on Real Bread ingredients, equipment, baking classes and more. Read more about why and how to join us.

Make a doughnation

If you'd like to make a one-off doughnation as well as / instead of joining us, you can do so here.

Help us to raise dough

Can your business make a special donation, or collect from your customers, during the week? Maybe you could send a percentage of your total sales, or just from a Real Bread Week loaf/class.

You can send what you raise to us by debit/credit card or PayPal payment via our doughnations page

NB You can't add Gift Aid to donations you collect from other people.

We'll be publishing a roll of honour of people who donate / raise over £100. If you'd prefer your name not to appear on the list, please let us know.

How was it for you?

As a charity, we need to demonstrate that our work is wanted, needed and of benefit.

After Real Bread Week (or you've run / taken part in at least one activity) please give used your feedback about what you did and how we could make improvements for the future.