New BBC2 Community Supported Baking series spotlights Real Bread

From Monday 5 December BBC2’s Big Bread Experiment will show the rise of Real Bread at Community Supported Bakery Bread...Actually in Bedale, Yorkshire.

Over three consecutive nights at 7pm the series produced by Keo Films follows this group of Real Bread Campaign members’ year-long mission to set up a Community Supported Bakery (CSB). Along the way the bakers are guided by Duncan Glendinning and Patrick Ryan of Campaign member The Thoughtful Bread Company in Bath. The series also shows  fellow Campaign members working to restore Crakehall Watermill.

Chris Young of the Campaign said: ‘Since it began in 2008 the Real Bread Campaign has been encouraging and supporting Community Supported Bakeries, so it’s great that BBC2 is now helping to share this great idea with Britain. Hopefully these Campaign members’ stories will inspire even more people to get baking Real Bread for their local communities.’

Carol Brown of Bread…Actually adds: ‘We hope it will help people to understand where we came from and what we believe in: the beauty of simple, locally produced bread, and the unifying power of baking it together.’

Taking its cue from Community Supported Agriculture, spearheaded in the UK by the Soil Association, in CSB the risks and rewards of a Real Bread enterprise are shared between the bakery and its customers. CSB is a key element of the Campaign’s book Knead to Know, the guide to baking Real Bread for your local community. The book is available to Campaign members for just £10 and non-members for £15 (plus £2 p&p).

Membership of the Real Bread Campaign is open to everyone who cares about the state of bread in Britain. Benefits include discounts on professional and domestic bread making courses and access to The Real Baker-e online forum, in which CSB bakers and all other members can ask questions and share ideas.

The Real Bread Campaign is part of the charity Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. Funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food programme, the Campaign champions local loaves baked without the use of artificial additives or hidden processing aids, and finds ways to make bread better for us, better for our communities and better for the planet.  Full details about CSB and the Campaign can be found at www.realbreadcampaign.org, and of the series at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018cbvs

**ENDS**

For more information about Community Supported Baking and the Campaign please contact Chris Young: chris@sustainweb.org or 0203 5596 777 www.realbreadcampaign.org       twitter.com/realbread     facebook.com/realbreadcampaign

Notes to editors

Other current initiatives from the Real Bread Campaign include:

• Real Bread on The Menu: the Campaign’s scheme to encourage more public sector institutions (such as schools, care homes and hospitals) and food access projects (e.g. co-operative buying groups, community cafes, box schemes) around Britain to make Real Bread available.
• Bake Your Lawn: A FREE grassroots guide to support teachers and parents helping children around Britain to sow a square metre of soil with a handful of wheat in the spring and grow it, mill it, bake it, eat it, to follow the Real Bread journey from seed to sandwich on their own doorsteps.
• Knead to Know: the Real Bread starter: the Campaign’s 140 page introductory guide to success in bringing Real Bread back to the heart of your local community, available as a limited edition book or PDF download. 
• The Real Bread Loaf Mark: Want to find Real Bread? Then Look for The Loaf Mark! This is the at-a-glance assurance from a baker that a loaf is what the Campaign calls Real Bread.
• The Real Bread Finder: the only online directory dedicated to helping people find where to buy Real Bread locally. Free for bakers to add, and people to search for, places to buy Real Bread locally.

Local Food has been developed by a consortium of 15 national environmental organisations, and is managed on their behalf by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT). Supported by the Big Lottery Fund's Changing Spaces programme, Local Food has distributed grants to a variety of food related projects to make locally grown food more accessible. www.localfoodgrants.org

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) is a registered charity, incorporated by Royal Charter, to promote conservation and manage environmental programmes throughout the whole of the UK. It has established management systems for holding and distributing funds totalling more than £20 million annually to environmental projects across the UK.

The Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces programme was launched in November 2005 to help communities enjoy and improve their local environments. The programme funds a range of activities from local food schemes and farmers markets, to education projects teaching people about the local environment.

The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. www.biglotteryfund.org.uk.

The Sheepdrove Trust also provides generous annual funding to the Campaign.