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Real Bread Week
BAKE Real Bread BUY Real Bread BOOST our charity
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.
See also: Year-round Real Bread gifts
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.
Buy Real Bread
- Look for The Real Bread Loaf Mark
- Find a local Real Bread bakery
- Why support a local Real Bread bakery
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
- Recipes
- Home baking tips
- Real Bread baking schools
- Specific classes and events
- Discounts on ingredients, equipment, classes
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.
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 logo.
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
Run a class / activity
Can YOU help other people to celebrate Real Bread Week this year?
There are plenty of ways to help people in your local community enjoy Real Bread...and maybe even raise dough for the Campaign at the same time.
Whether online or face-to-face (where it's permitted, safe and appropriate to do so) you could organise a Real Bread:
- beginners’ baking workshop / class / bakealong
- pizza night
- lunchbox masterclass to share great Real Bread alternatives to soggy factory loaf sarnies
- social event, bringing together friends, colleagues or neighbours to bakealong together or compare what you've made in advance
- bake it forward scheme - see below
...or maybe it's a simple as making a loaf as a Real Bread Week special or publishing a recipe on your website.
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
Campaign supporters can login to download the Real Bread Week logo and an example/template media release
The more the merrier
Perhaps you could involve 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 group.
Real Bread Buddies Day
The first ever #RealBreadBuddiesDay is on Sunday 27 February 2022.
Real Bread Buddies Day is about you making connections and building relationships with other people within and beyond your family and wider community.
Whether you’re a relative newbie, occasional homebaker, or seasoned pro, we want YOU to share your knowledge, skills and traditions to get more people making Real Bread.
Perhaps you can pass on a family flatbread recipe to a grandchild at home, host a beginners’ bread club for half a dozen neighbours, convene a challah bakealong in a care home, or run a baker exchange with another bakery.
Promote your event
If you're planning a public class/event/activity, please make your plans of whatever works for you as soon as you can and add the details to the Real Bread calendar - click on the + symbol.
Campaign supporters can login to download the Real Bread Buddies Day logo, poster and example/template media release.
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!***
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.
This survey ends on Sunday 6 March 2022.
WIN
Our friends Toast Ale are offering one Companion Case of 26 beers to give away to one survey respondent. Read details and T&Cs
See also
- Sourdough September
- Bake Your Lawn
- Start a microbakery
- Baking therapy
- Bread machines
- Real Bread Week archive 2010
- 2011
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014-15
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.