An additive-free wholemeal and white loaf is being sold cheaply to families in Bristol, many of whom are used to eating white sliced bread
“Your bread is lush”: it’s a classically Bristolian testimonial for a project that has Bristolians’ wellbeing at its heart.
Other feedback received by Jodie Smith, food programme manager at Heart of BS13, about her affordable loaf scheme includes: “We come here just to buy your bread – it’s like bread used to be.” The words are all music to the ears of Smith, who decided to create an artisanal bread that’s similar to the white sliced variety that many people are used to, but with 15% wholemeal flour – and strictly no additives. To develop the loaf, she teamed up with Laura Hart of Hart’s Bakery, which peddles its beautiful-smelling wares right outside Temple Meads station.
Since November 2022, Smith has sold the ‘JustBread’ loaves – leavened with baker’s yeast, baked in a tin and sold sliced – from a mobile food shop, as well as from the project’s community freezer, for just 75p. This makes it cheaper than brand-name loaves and all but the very cheapest ‘value’ range supermarket own-brand options.
The electric cargo bike roams around Hartcliffe and Withywood in the BS13 postcode area in south Bristol, in which one in eight households lives in extreme food insecurity. “My kids used to have a belly ache with the bread we used to buy, and when they eat yours, they don’t seem to get one,” reads another comment from a satisfied customer.
The scheme dovetails nicely with the other social enterprise projects that Heart of BS13 runs, including a market garden, flower farm, city farm and a frozen meals production kitchen. Another of the city’s bakeries, Batches Bakery, also produces under the JustBread umbrella: sourdough loaves, which are similarly subsidised.
“Bread is important to our daily life,” Smith points out, mentioning the “comfort and familiarity” of this versatile kitchen cupboard staple.
What gives her hope? “That better quality bread is slowly becoming more widely available and at affordable prices. And what we hear from our customers is that there’s no going back to mass-produced, nutrient-poor supermarket-bought bread once they’ve had a bite of the real stuff.”
Representatives from Heart of BS13 will be speaking along with those from Hart’s Bakery at an event on 18 March
Main image: Sarah Craig, the project’s mobile e-cargo bike shop rider. All images courtesy of Heart of BS13
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