Bakeries across the globe are celebrating additive-free loaves and the good baking can do as Real Bread Week, organised by the Real Bread Campaign, gets underway.

Running from 22 February to 1 March, the 2020 initiative is highlighting enterprises and projects that help people benefit from the therapeutic, social and employment opportunities of baking.

Bakeries, schools, mills and more are getting involved in the annual celebration by hosting events and activities and sharing them on social media with the hashtag #RealBreadWeek.

Among the organisations taking part are:

  • Bad Boys Bakery and Freedom Bakery, London and Glasgow: Employment and life skills training for inside and beyond the prison gate
  • Better Health Bakery, London: Training placements for adults distanced from employment by mental ill-health
  • The Bread & Butter Project, Marrickville, Australia: Helping people seeking refuge and asylum to shape their lives
  • The Good Loaf, Northampton: Employment opportunities to help vulnerable local women break the cycle of poverty, unemployment and offending
  • Hot Bread Kitchen, New York, US: Creating economic opportunity for women through careers in food
  • Knead Good Bread, East Midlands: Baking in ways that can contribute to a mindful and coping approach to life
  • The Lantern Community, Ringwood: Work and learning opportunities for people with different abilities
  • Luminary Bakery, London: Empowering women at social and economic disadvantage to build a future for themselves
  • Planet Leicester Bakers, Leicestershire: A range of community-focused projects, around mental wellbeing, growing old gracefully
  • Stoneham Bakehouse, Hove: Projects include BreadShed, helping older people to tackle isolation through getting together to chat and bake bread
  • Yangon Bakehouse, Yangon, Myanmar: Empowering women with work and life skills.

“The Real Bread Campaign has long believed that baking Real Bread can, and does, help to change people’s lives. That’s why, as part of the Together We Rise initiative, a key activity of this year’s Real Bread Week (22 February to 1 March) is throwing the spotlight on the bready brilliance that’s going on already,” said the Real Bread Campaign’s coordinator Chris Young.

To find out more about how your bakery can give back to local communities, work with charities or start up a charitable initiative, read our latest piece ‘Bake well: how bakeries can give back in 2020’.

Let us know how you are celebrating Real Bread Week by getting in touch with us via Twitter (@BritishBaker) or dropping us an email: amy.north@wrbm.com.

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