Ocado is renaming its Wholemeal Sourdough loaves as Brown Sourdough following a complaint from the Real Bread Campaign.
The online retailer had received a request for the name change earlier this year after a microbaker had alerted the Campaign to the fact that the loaves were made using a combination of wholemeal and non-wholemeal flour. “I’m pretty sure this is misleading and illegal,” commented the baker on Ocado’s use of ‘wholemeal’ in its product name.
Ingredients listed for Ocado’s Wholemeal Sourdough reveal the 500g loaf (rsp: £2.65) contains 65% wholemeal wheat flour as well as wheat flour and soya flour. The 800g loaf (rsp: £3.15) has 62% wholewheat flour.
The Campaign noted that Bread & Flour Regulations 1998 require that: ‘There shall not be used in the labelling or advertising of bread, as part of the name of the bread, whether or not qualified by other words […] the word ’wholemeal’ unless all the flour used as an ingredient in the preparation of the bread is wholemeal.’
Defra was to be introducing a ‘legal description that means wholemeal flour must consist of the whole product from the milling and grinding of cleaned cereal’ last year.
Real Bread Campaign coordinator Chris Young called the misuse of the word wholemeal as “an abuse of trust, which undermines the positive work that its advocates do”. He also noted that while people eating more wholemeal real bread wasn’t its sole focus, it very much encouraged people to do so, “not only on health grounds but also to reduce waste of food and resources”.
A spokesperson for Ocado stated that the company always wants to be fully transparent about all its products. “In the light of recent feedback, we’re in the process of updating the name of our sourdough loaf from Wholemeal Sourdough to Brown Sourdough,” said the spokesperson, adding “we’re making this change as quickly as we can, while minimising waste on the old packaging”.
According to the Real Bread Campaign, Ocado had told it that it would be in a position to move over to the new ‘brown’ artwork by the end of June at the latest.
The wholemeal debate
This was by no means the first time that a supermarket had been quizzed over wholemeal claims. In 2023, the campaign wrote to bosses at Aldi, Asda, The Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, and Waitrose asking why wheat flour appeared in lists of ingredients for their wholemeal loaves.
The Campaign said a number of trading standards complaints it had submitted about these cases were still awaiting resolution, some of them pending new governmental guidance. It added that Defra had told it on 19 February 2025: ‘The guidance is currently going through internal clearance process we expect to publish within the next month’.
Half and half loaves had also been challenged on their use of the word wholemeal, but an industry statement published by the Federation of Bakers in January 2024 stated that they won’t have to change their product names or packaging.
Sourfaux squabble
Despite conceding to the challenge on ‘wholemeal’, Ocado rejected an additional request regarding its use of the term ‘sourdough’. The Campaign had asked it to also remove the E300 (ascorbic acid) from loaves, or switch out ‘sourdough’ from the name, as it said additives are not used in making ‘genuine sourdough’ bread.
In its rejection, Ocado was said to have referred to the ‘UK Baking Industry Code of Practice for the Labelling of Sourdough Bread and Rolls’, published by the Association of Bakery Ingredient Manufacturers in 2023. Although the code doesn’t specifically address the use of ascorbic acid, it does allow for additives of mandatory flour fortificants required by the UK Bread and Flour Regulations 1998.
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