Do you care about the state of bread in Britain? On Saturday 14th November, LandShare CIC is inviting those who do to St Anne’s College in Oxford for a day of debate, discussion and the famous Oxford saffron buns.

The ‘Rise of Real Bread’ will bring together growers, millers, bakers, educators, activists and consumers from around the country for an exploration into the murky secrets of mass produced loaves and how we all can contribute to the continuing renaissance of all-natural ‘Real Bread’2.

Chaired by Sheila Dillon of the Radio 4 Food Programme, speakers at this all day (10am-5pm) event include:

• Rob Alderson – Unicorn Grocery
• William Black – food writer, anthropologist and founder of The Natural Bread Company
• Felicity Lawrence – special correspondent for The Guardian, author of Not on the Label and Eat Your Heart Out
• John Letts – archeo-botanist, thatcher and founder of The Oxford Bread Group
• Dan and Johanna McTiernan – owners of The Handmade Bakery (a community bakery)3
• Colin Tudge – writer and biologist, author of Feeding People is Easy
• Andrew Whitley – author of Bread Matters and co-founder of The Real Bread Campaign
• Bee Wilson – food writer, historian and Sunday Telegraph food columnist
• Martin Wolfe – Research Director, The Organic Research Centre

In a journey following the grain chain past, present and future from seed to sandwich, discussion titles include: wheat for the future; a history of bread making and the state of the ‘modern’ loaf: what’s so good about Real Bread?; an introduction to community bakeries; and ‘Real Bread’ is only for the rich and/or those with time on their hands. Speakers and delegates will aim to create an agenda to bring back Real Bread.

After the event, participants are invited to continue the conversation over a Real Bread feast at the nearby Freud Café.

Tickets for the event, including lunch and refreshments are £38, available online at landshare.org or by calling 01865 516585 for a postal application form.

The Rise of Real Bread is organised by LandShare (CIC) in partnership with and to celebrate the first anniversaries of the Real Bread Campaign5 and the Oxford Bread Group6.

For more information, contact Ruth West on info@landshare.org or 01865 516585

www.landshare.org

www.realbreadcampaign.org

See more of this collection on my flickr pages!

Q) How does Oxford Bread Group work?
A) I grow the wheat and Geoff Coleman makes the bread twice a week at the Cornfield Bakery, which is only a couple of miles from where the wheat is grown. We have a subscription scheme, and our customers pay for each month’s order in advance. The bread is then delivered to local ‘hubs’, from which people collect their loaves. The subscription scheme overcomes the cash flow problem that many small businesses face and also eliminates food waste, as we only bake what has been ordered.

Q) What are your aims?
A) To shorten the grain chain and give the people of Oxford bread made from organic grain that is grown, milled and baked locally. As we get more subscribers, we hope to enlist more farmers to grow the grain and more bakers to bake the bread.

Q) What are the main obstacles you have faced?
A) Finding local farmers who will grow small quantities (eg. 10 acres) of grain on contract for a reasonable price; securing minimal funding to cover basic expenses to run the project; setting up the ‘local hubs’ where members can collect their bread; and finding a professional, local baker willing to bake the loaf.

Our miller is a little further than we’d like, but the addition to our carbon footprint is minimal, and he’s supported our project from the beginning and is happy to mill the small quantities we need. As the group grows, and has more wheat to mill, we also hope to use millers who are closer to us. 
 
Q) We understand that you are using heritage varieties of grain in your bread – tell us a little about these and why you are using them. 
A) We’ve developed a new Oxford landrace of ancient wheat varieties that is well adapted to local growing conditions. Our winter wheat mix contains at least 150 different varieties, all growing in one field as in the days before modern scientific plant breeding.

Older varieties of wheat are lower yielding, but they are also hardier, and produce grain with good gluten content as well as tall, strong straw perfect for use as thatch. They also grow better and are more reliable than modern varieties in low input/organic conditions. The biodiversity of our fields helps keep them free of disease, and the tall stems and large leaves helps choke out weeds.

Q) What types of bread do you produce?
A) At the present time we produce only one kind of bread – a traditional, long (4 hour) ferment, hand-moulded loaf that is made from our wholesome white flour. This loaf is raised primarily with a slow-acting yeast along with a small amount of rye sourdough starter.

Q) Where can people buy OBG bread?
A) Currently, our customers join one of our local hubs, from which they collect the bread. We also bake to order for special events and restaurants. We hope to supply select local shops for over-the-counter sales within a few months.

Q) How much is a loaf?
A) We are running this as a ‘not for profit’ scheme, and have to charge £2.50 per loaf to cover our costs. Members order at least one loaf a week and pay for their bread quarterly, in advance.

Q) What has the response been to your bread so far? 
A) We’ve had a fantastic response. Everyone loves the bread. We launched the project in early April and are already selling over 100 loaves a week. Many members have told us that our bread tastes like the delicious, Real Bread they have eaten on the continent. Many members with gluten intolerance have also found that they can eat our bread without getting ill.

Q) What advice would you give to others interested in starting a scheme like yours? 
A) Don’t believe what most professional agronomists tell you about how to grow organic wheat! Grow older varieties and ideally mixtures of older varieties, in organic/low input conditions to produce high quality local grain. Make sure you find a committed baker and farmer before you start the project. And try to get a small grant to cover your administration costs, as setting up a project like this requires a lot of time and some funding.

To join an existing Oxford Bread Group hub, set up a new one, or find more information, visithttp://www.oxfordlocalbread.org/ or email info@oxfordlocalbread.org.

By Helen Peacocke

An enthusiastic group of Oxfordshire foodies aim to turn over a few new loaves in 2009. They are rebelling against today’s chemical-enhanced mass- produced bread. Bread created from flour milled from a mix of ancient cereal varieties grown organically in the Chilterns, will play an important role in their diet from now on.

The coalition of consumers, bakers and campaigners launched their Real Bread Campaign in Oxford, when they met late last year at The Vaults & Garden Café to discuss ways of encouraging us all to eat real bread and so challenge the giant baking companies that dominate the modern bread market. The Oxford Bread Group will be run by volunteers on a non-profit basis.


Those attending the first meeting included Andrew Whitely, the founder of the Village Bakery in Melmerby, Cumbria, and author of the book Bread Matters. After many years as a full-time artisan baker and respected food writer, he wants to spread the word and encourage us all to make our own bread, or at least buy and eat the real thing. Andrew launched the Real Bread initiative nationally, in hope that it would be taken up around the country. He sped to Oxford straight from London, having launched his Real Bread Campaign there.

Others in the new group, who also wish to rebel against the bread sold today, included Colin Tudge, biologist and author of Feeding People is Easy and John Letts, an archaeobotanist and wheat grower. They too had much to say about modern bread.

Andrew’s main argument is that most people would be horrified if they found out what was actually in their daily bread.

He said: “Bread should be the staff of life, but the label on the average loaf reads more like a recipe for a scientific experiment than the ingredients of a staple food.

Andrew pointed out that traditional dough was left to ferment for many hours in order to develop its flavour and improve its texture and nutritional qualities, but modern supermarket bread is no longer made in the traditional way.

The Oxford Bread Group’s literature points out that instead of allowing bread time to prove and develop naturally, flour used for mass-produced bread is mixed with a host of chemical additives, flour improvers and processing aids. It is also injected with air, extruded into loaf shapes and then baked to produce a facsimile of real bread.

Supermarket bread also contains chemical enzymes that are added to soften the bread and extend its shelf life.

The group accepts that we don’t all have time to make our own bread, which is why they have come up with an interesting alternative. They plan to produce and distribute loaves baked by master baker Geoff Coleman of the Cornfield Bakery, Wheatley, using a traditional, long-ferment process that allows the loaf to rise slowly and develop its flavours naturally. But that’s not all. This bread will not be baked from any old flour. They plan to use stone ground Heritage Flour milled from a mix of ancient cereal varieties grown organically in the Chilterns. The wheat varieties that go into the flour have been grown by John Letts. It has taken John more than ten years to be able to harvest enough wheat to make this a viable project.

It all began when he recovered a small amount of medieval grain remaining in the thatch while he was inspecting old roofs. He took the grains to the Gene Centre in Norwich to search for contemporary equivalents he could grow to raise more seeds. It’s been a long haul, but he has finally reached his goal.

He began with just 25 seeds from the seed bank. It proved a slow process, but he now has enough to bring in a good harvest and supply him with sufficient seeds for next year’s planting.

John explained that modern wheat varieties were genetically uniform and produced bumper crops of high-protein grain only when grown with chemical fertilisers, herbicides and fungicides, whereas the heritage grains produced a reliable and sustainable yield of high quality grain in low-input growing conditions.

He insists on having the wheat stone-ground as modern milling takes so much of the goodness out of grain that chalk, iron and B Vitamins have to be added to most flour by law, but even then many vital elements are still missing from refined flour.

Another advantage of using a blend of old varieties of wheat is that it’s genetically diverse, with between 150 and 200 types of wheat in one field compared to the mono cultures of a standard crop.

The group aims to start small, with about 75 households paying in advance to get one loaf of bread a week. They will use existing distribution networks such as vegetable box schemes and farmers’ markets to minimise distribution costs.
The Oxford Bread Group is essentially a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme that will form a direct link between producers and consumers. They also hope it will create a new community of consumers who are dedicated to supporting local producers. Their plan is that it will evolve into a community enterprise, delivering bread and eventually flour and other cereal-based products to local communities through select shops, food co-ops, schools, community cafes and lunch clubs. They also want to develop an educational outreach project.

In fact they have so many exciting plans for 2009, they are convinced this is going to be a year to remember. The group plans to distribute the first of their loaves on Thursday, January 15. If you would like to join the group, you can make contact on info@oxfordlocalbread.org