BATCH: Stroud

On Tuesday 18 March 2025, more than 70 farmers, millers, bakers, academics, activists, broadcasters and other Real Bread lovers gathered at Brimscombe Mill in Gloucestershire for a day of chewing over the present state - and future - of better-bred bread. The networking event was run by The Long Table, Hobbs House Bakery and the Real Bread Campaign.

Part of the Campaign’s ongoing series of one day events, BATCH: Stroud was a chance for people involved in the rise of Real Bread, from seed to sandwich, to share and gain knowledge and inspiration.

What people said

Anonymous feedback included:

"Thanks for such a great event and for being invited to be involved. It was very well organised, structured and attended. I am still digesting some of the ideas, inspiration and connections made!"

“The talks were all brilliant, well chosen speakers with really interesting projects to share and good questions from the audience.”

“This was my first experience of BATCH and I think it was absolutely fabulous. Great inspirational speakers on all the panels. I appreciated the opportunity to chat with like-minded souls and compare bread making stories. Overall I found it both uplifting and at the same time very  humbling to realise where my tiny bakery sits in the long chain of people and processes that supply the flour for me to bake with, and the many challenges they deal with to make this happen.”
“Thank you so much for putting it on - really good. We NEED to connect more farmers and bakers of every scale in their local area.”

“Very well organised and presented, refreshingly informal, informative and mind expanding. Well done.”

Facebook album of photos from the event

The plan

BATCH: Stroud will be hosted by The Long Table, housed in a former wool mill on the outskirts of Stroud. The day will include panel discussions (with audience Q&A) and a communal lunch, with more details to be revealed. The themes of the panel sessions are:

• Bread locally: the UK’s emerging non-commodity grain revolution. 
• Bread for good: inspiring social enterprises and community projects.

Following the event, participants are welcome to stay on at The Long Table for an evening of food, drink and live music.

Speakers

Panellists confirmed so far:

• Rosy Benson: Field Bakery and South West Grain Network
• Martin Cosarinsky-Campos: Breadwinners 
• Laura Hart: Hart's Bakery / JustBread
• Jean Kern: e5 Bakehouse / Just Bread
• Fred Price: Gothelney Farm and South West Grain Network
• Jodie Smith: Heart of Bristol BS13 / JustBread
• Heloise Trott: West Midlands and Southwest Grain Networks

David Wright will be dropping in to talk about his forthcoming book Breaking Bread. 

Profiles below. Lineup subject to change.

Sustain strives to ensure that our events give a platform to, and help to inspire, people who embody a range of experience and identities. We're not there yet with this event and are still working to find panellists to join our brilliant line up. If your work falls within either of the panels' themes and you'd like to speak, please email Chris at the Real Bread Campaign.

Food and drink

The Long Table invites participants to enjoy a pay-as-you-can lunch that will showcase seasonal, hyper-local ingredients.

The communal meal is a chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Participants might even meet people who’ve just turned up to eat and are wondering why the heck everyone seems to be banging on about bread. 

Raising dough

As well as bringing people together, a key aim of the day is to help fund the Real Bread Campaign work of the food and farming charity Sustain. 

The ticket includes access to all event sessions, with help-yourself hot drinks at break times. The pay-as-you-can lunch and other food / drink will be available to buy separately.

While this is a fundraising event, the organisers don’t want cost to be a barrier to participation. Participants are encouraged to choose a higher price if they can, but a limited number of more affordable tickets are available on a first-come-first-served basis. 

Who's who

Rosy Benson is an experienced baker, who founded Field Bakery and Mill on Gothelney Farm in Somerset, in collaboration with farmer Fred Price. With a background that includes working at e5 Bakehouse in Hackney, to bakeries in the USA, Rosy has combined her passion of baking and sustainable farming. All of the flour Rosy uses at Field Bakery she freshly mills from a diverse range of population and heritage grains, using a New American Stone Mill she co-owns with Fred. The bakery is open once a week at the farm, as well as delivering bread wholesale and to a bread club subscription into Bristol. To help connect people with diverse, more flavourful flours, Rosy also offers sourdough workshops for home and professional bakers, and mills wholemeal flour for friends' bakeries in the South West Grain Network. www.fieldbakery.com @rosybenson

Martin Cosarinsky-Campos is a social impact leader, dedicated to refugee employment, integration and building community. As Managing Director of Breadwinners, he leads a social enterprise that sells organic Real Bread while supporting young refugees with work, training and mentoring. He is also the Chairman of the community club Argentina FC and has served on the boards of Social Innovation Exchange and Praxis. His volunteer work with RefugeeYouth inspired a career shift from corporate roles in continuous improvement, at GSK and Lindt & Sprüngli, to the social impact sector. Previously, he led WASH initiatives in rural Nicaragua. Now based in London, Martin is a Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs and the On Purpose leadership programme. www.breadwinners.org.uk @wearebreadwinners

Laura Hart and her husband Pete opened Hart’s Bakery in 2010, after she spent 10 years as a pastry chef. The bakery ran from a borrowed kitchen and market stalls, before finding a permanent home in a railway arch at Temple Meads station. A team of 20 bakers, chefs and baristas now provides Real Bread, cake, lunches and coffee to a steady stream of local customers. Hart’s Bakery endeavours to provide a sustainable work environment for their team and supports local initiatives working to reduce food inequality. For the last two years the bakery has been making Real Bread for Heart of BS13's JustBread affordable loaves project. www.hartsbakery.co.uk  @hartsbakery

Jean Kern is currently a baker at e5 Bakehouse. He helped coordinate many iterations of Just Bread, e5’s refugee baking programme since its launch. Jean also played a major role in starting up e5 Roasthouse in Poplar, east London. He will be speaking about working alongside refugees, external partnerships, the challenges in organising the next phase of Just Bread, and discuss bakers ways in which can help to bring communities together. www.e5bakehouse.com @e5bakehouse

Fred Price is a farmer reimagining his practices and place within our food system, and a passionate advocate for agroecology. Fred works with UK Grain Lab and the South West Grain Network to reimagine our food system, and is an ambassador for Farming the Future.  He says: ‘my hope is for a diverse, decentralised and democratic food system in which trust, relationships and community are the currency.’ www.gothelneyfarmer.co.uk @gothelneyfarmer

Jodie Smith joined the Heart of BS13 team as a cookery tutor in January 2019. With a background in nutrition and health development, Jodie has spent over 14 years in public health roles, both in commissioning and delivery. Prior to this, Jodie worked in food events, picking up skills that have come in handy in spearheading the setup of Heart of BS13’s gourmet frozen meal social enterprise.  The income generated from this venture, now in 12 sites across Bristol, fuels the organisation’s efforts to combat food insecurity within the local community. These innovative projects include the Slow Cooker Club, Mobile E-cargo Bike Food Shop, Community Freezer, and the JustBread affordable loaf project. www.heartofbs13.org.uk

Heloise Trott is a farmer, advocate, and consultant in organic agriculture, specialising in seed sovereignty and peer-to-peer learning. She helps establish and coordinate small-scale food and grain networks across the UK and works at Black Mountains College, promoting sustainable farming and local food systems. Passionate about preserving diverse, locally adapted seeds, Heloise supports resilient growing practices that protect crop diversity and strengthen food security.  @heloisetrott

David Wright, aka The Breaducator, is a third-generation baker, author and bakery teacher from Suffolk. He has worked in some of the UK's best bakeries and now runs the Pump Street Workshop, where he teaches, as well as working for the woodfired Acre Bakery. His new book Breaking Bread is out on 20 March and will be available to buy at this event. @thebreaducator

Photos: Rosy Benson © Field Bakery, Martin Cosarinsky-Campos © Breadwinners, Heloise Trott © Heloise Trott, David Wright, Fred Price © Gothelney Farm, Laura Hart © Hart’s Bakery, Jean Kern © Jean Kern, Jodie Smith Heart of BS13.

Timetable

A basic outline of what’s happening when:

0945-1030: Registration, grab a hot drink.  
1100-1200: Bread Locally panel.
1200-1230: Forum / open mic. 
1230-1400: Pay-as-you-can lunch.
1415-1515: Bread for Good panel.
1545-1630: David Wright 
1630-1700: Final thoughts.
1700-2000: Pay-as-you-can-dinner (for people who want to stay on after the event)

All round to yours next time?
Do you run a Real Bread bakery, mill, cooking/baking school, or other venue somewhere in the UK? Fancy hosting some sort of event, from a networking do for 20 bakers to a festival for 100s of Real Bread lovers?

Drop Chris at the Real Bread Campaign a line to discuss how we might be able to work with you to organise something. In particular, we’d love to partner on events in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other places beyond London.

See also

• BATCH: Edinburgh
• BATCH London
• BATCH: South West
• The Uprising