‘Grow better grain, bake better bread,’ goes the ethos at collaborative organisation Scotland The Bread
“I am afraid my mental processes are rather like a slow fermentation. If you are patient enough, something good might come out of it,” laughs Andrew Whitley (pictured above).
The truth is, on the subject of bread, there are few more knowledgeable. Baker, activist, author and godfather of the Real Bread Campaign, Whitley opened his first sourdough bakery in Cumbria, back in 1976.
Almost five decades later, he is today at the helm of Scotland The Bread, a community benefit society based in Fife that researches and grows grain, mills flour and shares vital fermentation know–how, with the common purposes of healthy nourishment, food justice and ecological responsibility.
“My children will tell you I have been single-mindedly obsessed about bread. Certainly they used to look at their watches whenever the f-word was used – ‘f ’ for fermentation, that is – but it has taken me a long time to fully understand all the connections between healthy soil, grain, real bread and public health,” says Whitley.
Scotland The Bread grows, mills and sells Balcaskie landrace flour, made from a blend of long-straw wheats including three old Scottish varieties (Rouge d’Ecosse, Golden Drop and Hunter’s, all rescued from gene banks) plus Scandinavian mixtures that are chosen for mineral density, genetic diversity, baking qualities and flavour. To widen access to what might be regarded as very high-quality wholemeal baking flour, Scotland The Bread set up the Flour to the People solidarity fund, which asks customers and supporters to contribute flour to community bakeries and food hubs across Scotland, where the impact of free flour is likely to be greatest.
Scotland The Bread’s latest project, provisionally called The Fife Fermenter, is a vision for a Scottish grain hub, a pilot programme for a just transition of the food system from its current unsustainable, climate-wrecking and diet-damaging situation, to something better. “Democratising real bread is at the heart of the project,” Whitley says. “We’re trying to develop a whole new system of supply, from soil to slice.”
To do so, they need to raise £3m. “It is a massive deal, particularly for someone who’s never been very good at fundraising,” says Whitley. Equity, ecological responsibility, diversity and local control are the four purposes, and they are more likely to emerge from what scientist, writer and farmer Chris Smaje calls a ‘small farm future’ than from any further concentration of power within farming, baking and retailing.
The current system of farming and food production is clearly running out of road. “We can’t just chip away at some of the worst aspects of it and hope for the best,” says Whitley. “We need to develop an example of a grain and bread network that genuinely looks more likely to work in the future.”
My children used to look at their watches whenever the f-word was used – ‘f’ for fermentation, that is
He mentions, as one inspiring example, Kimberley Bell of UK Grain Lab and the Small Food Bakery in Nottingham. She is working across all areas of food production and retailing, he says, putting as much effort into understanding how to get bread into the right communities on an equitable basis as she does into the bread itself. “She appreciates that we have to build demand, not just increase supply,” says Whitley, “and she works in a non-hierarchical, democratic, participatory system that makes sure everybody is heard.
“I suspect I am perceived as some weird purist in all this,” he adds, “but breaking down elitism with respect to sourdough bread is something we are all enjoined to work out how to do. I have been trying for nearly 50 years, but we need to work harder to ensure our bread gets to the places where it can make the most difference to people’s lives. That’s the challenge,” he says. “There are no shortcuts. Good bread. It’s the start of life.”
Robert Penn is the author of Slow Rise: A Bread-Making Adventure
Main image: founder of Scotland The Bread, Andrew Whitley, photographed by Simon Hird
All photography: Simon Hird
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