What is Bread Club?
Essentially a bread subscription, running throughout the year providing members with sourdough loaves which in turn supports our small food network between you, me the baker and Fred the Farmer growing the wheat. This is a unique opportunity to taste the bread of your region grown in soil that is cared for through the practice of agroecological farming. The focus of the Farm and Bakery is on building diversity, resilience and human scale relationships that value collaboration rather than competition. Its a wonderful journey to be part of and it tastes good too!
Bread Club set up during lockdown November 2020, it now runs alongside other activities at Field Bakery such as Workshops and each Saturday morning the bakery at the farm is open to the public with a large range of sweet and savoury offerings plus fresh coffee (a bonus if your a Gothelney Bread Club member picking up from the farm on Saturday mornings!). As a Baker its a joy to be baking bread using grain which I believe in, supporting the farm and providing my community with more nourishing bread that helps connects you to the land that feeds you locally.
Not many, ever question the main ingredient - Flour - that goes into bread and all grain based foods. The majority of the grain you eat is classed as a commodity, grown as a monoculture, often traded vast distances, before usually being refined into white flour, its true impact is hard to trace. This flour in turn is fast fermented into loaves severely lacking in nutrition, it has come to symbolise how big food industry has messed with our guts! Food producers and eaters need to unite! We can avoid these long supply chains that extract value and nutrition out of our food, one loaf at a time, this is about us creating a resilient future food system and engaging in our own and the planets health, one and the same. Our understanding of local food by now might only have stretched to veg and meat, most know very little of the grain supply that contributes to our diet. Now that your aware, lets do something about it!
Why join Bread Club?
To enjoy great bread!
Rosy bakes with 100% freshly stoneground flour from grain sourced directly from forward thinking agroecological farms in the UK. Currently this is all Gothelney grown grain grown in fields around the Bakery which in turn is then freshly milled in the bakery, occasionally I may occasionally try new varieties of grain from other farms to help build resilience in the South West Grain Network.
Support real food production by skilled bakers, natural fermentation and NOT fast yeast and dough conditioners.
To access bread with a higher wholegrain proportion to support increasing your fibre and nutrient intake. Rosy blends high extraction (sifted) stoneground flour and whole flour for members to benefit from the nutrition and flavour of high proportion wholegrain foods whilst using some of my Baker expertise to maintaining a light enjoyable sourdough.
Subscribing to Bread Club supports the Bakery and Farm financially weekly through the year, as maybe you would through a a veg box CSA. You get to be the first to taste new varieties trialled at the farm, logistically it means I am able to accurately mill Gothelney grown grain without creating waste and as a solo Baker a subscription model helps to create a sustainable baking schedule for myself.
Over the year subscribing to Bread Club directly helps the farm and others to do the important work needed on diversifying the grains we grow here in the UK. Gothelney Farm is constantly evolving, learning from nature and proving influential on farming ecologically in the South West and wider UK. Therefore we need your appetite for good bread! Help support a grain network which is human scale and join this community.
Bonus, as a Bread Clubber, if you pick up from Gothelney Farm you get to jump the queue on Saturday mornings! OR get your loaf delivered to your neighbourhood pick up box in Bristol which makes securing your future local bread supply super easy. You also get to hear first about workshops on the farm, and news around the wider alternative grain network.
So, practicalities, how does it work?
Gothelney Farm members Pick up each SATURDAY between 10-2PM, whilst Bristol Bread Club members pick up from one of 4 Pick Up points every other WEDNESDAY anytime after 2PM. Your loaf will be wrapped, labeled with its ingredients and have your name clearly marked on.
As a member there will be the occasional email containing farm news, sourdough baking musings I may have and details of which Heritage wheat grain varieties or “populations” of wheats that have been freshly stonemilled that week from Gothelney grown grain. Through email is also how I communicate any holiday weeks off or changes to Bread Club, so please do keep an eye out.
Why is a Field Bakery sourdough loaf not a white sourdough?
Most sourdoughs you’ve probably eaten before use a high proportion of imported Canadian or Kazakstani wheat which is rollermilled into low extraction white flour, in which the high level of gluten can trap big air bubbles. In white rollermilled flour the germ and bran parts of the grain are stripped away (ie all of the flavour and nutrition) to produce inert consistently strong flour. Here at Field I freshly stonemill Gothelney wheat grain in the bakery into wholegrain flour, fulling valuing the crop that Fred has worked hard to produce. Loaves are large at 1kg in dough weight, always fermented using natural leaven, water and sea salt to form delicious flavourful bread that sustains you and is easy to digest. Occasionally I use additions such as Organic Oats supplied by Hodmedods which add a softness to the crumb, Organic golden linseeds, barley or farm produced honey. Any additions will be clearly labelled and avoid known allergens. Each bake is unique, bread should never be boring! but expect always; a large tinned loaf, sourdough fermented and wheat based. And guaranteed, always delicious.
I bake using tins, as this allows for high hydration doughs made with fresh flour, creating the perfect soft crumb. This also means your loaf keeps really well throughout the week and will fit the toaster perfectly.
PAYMENT
After signing up each week you will be charged automatically from our website £4.75 a loaf which includes:
If your based in Bristol, delivery to your pick up point.
A fair price to the farmer for the grain.
Provide a fair wage to me as an experienced baker for the skill, time developing, fermenting, baking, wrapping, labelling of your loaf and includes the time spent communicating to the membership.
This bread isn't a race to the bottom in providing cheaper food with its currently unaccounted for cost to the environment, the price reflects the real value of food grown locally.
Flexibility. Need to pause a week for a bread holiday?
If you require a week off for holiday I can simply refund you for that week (minus the transaction fee 25p), please just EMAIL BY THE SUNDAY OF THE WEEK you’d like to pause for, this gives me time to do the admin and reduce the milling quantity for that week. Any feedback or to ask questions please do get in touch through info@fieldbakery.com Email directly if you would like to double up on a loaf one week say if your away on holiday the next for I will endeavour to do my best to fit it in.
Email is how I will communicate when I’m taking the occasional Bakers week off. I take a total of an estimated 8 weeks off within a year. For example like you, I would like to take a break at christmas and part of my role in teaching Workshops at the Bakery is that I like to visit and learn from other Bakeries and farms within the grain network, rest and come back rejuvenated to bake for you all. Any weeks off on my part payments will either be paused simply be refunded to you on that particular week, an email will notify you.
When you purchase the subscription through PAYPAL or through the Squarespace SHOP please specify your chosen PICK UP POINT
PICK UP OPTIONS ARE:
Field Bakery, Gothelney Farm, Somerset (Every Saturday morning between 10AM and 2PM)
In Bristol pick up your 2 loaves anytime every other Wednesday from your box anytime after 2PM:
Eastfield Road, Henleaze
Purple Patch CSA Boiling wells, St Werburghs
Mansfield Street, Bedminster
William Street, Redfield
Colston Road, Easton
These drop off points are hosted by my generous wonderful! friends and fellow Bread Clubbers. They have heard me chat bread for years and seen the Bakery come into reality and thankfully wanted to support the work. Plus they enjoy the thanks they get for helping get good bread out to their neighbours. Over time I’m sure you’ll also get to know your pick up host and others collecting from your box. If you are not near any Pick Up point on the list above, but would like to start a new drop with some friends (min 7, max 9 per box) please do get in touch at info@fieldbakery.com
Note: For those new to Bread Club and using Bristol pick ups, the exact house number with its bread box at the front will be emailed to you once you sign up. Please try to pick up your loaf within 24 hours of drop off to eat it at peak freshness.
Upcoming Bristol drop off dates are:
Wednesday 28th Feb
Wednesday 13th March
Wednesday 27th March
Wednesday 10th April
Wednesday 24th April
DIVERSITY
Field Bakery seeks to support diverse farming systems; at a plant level, we support widening the genetics of cereal varieties grown and eaten here in the UK by developing on farm “populations” of cereal crops. We also support a commitment to increasing biodiversity and habitat creation at the whole farm level. By moving away from input-heavy modern monocultures we can create a more diverse and resilient food system which takes food back into the hands of the many not just the few. We also have a commitment to using more wholegrain flour in our breads, avoiding low extraction white flour. Bread Club loaves are sustaining flavourful healthier loaves which value the work taken to produce them. As a baker I’d like to diversify the bread we eat, I’m bored of white sourdoughs and pappy supermarket “bread” there is an alternative, join up to Bread Club and taste the difference.
SOIL
Using grain grown in a system which builds soil rather than depletes it. When we focus on creating healthy living soil it has the ability to support healthy plants which go onto create more nutritious food. All cereal grains grown at Gothelney Farm are part of a 4 year rotation which includes the farms Tamworth pigs which graze on the land affording us the ability to grow annual cereal crops like Wheat, Barley and Rye. All of the cereal crops also utilise the benefits of being grown intercropped with beans or peas too, further adding to the biodiversity within the field.
HUMAN SCALE
We aim to shorten the chain from field to loaf. Field Bakery is a small food manufacturing business which aims to value nature’s resources and fairly value the people involved from farmer to toast maker (thats you!).The Bakery buys most of the grain it uses from Gothelney Farm, freshly stonemills it then gets it directly to Bread Club members in their weekly loaf. This vastly reduces food miles and by utilising fresh stonemilling and natural fermentation, creates a much better tasting bread. Everyone should have access to more nutritious food and the land its grown on. Which is why Bread Club members are invited to visit the farm to ask questions and assess their own appetite for the system we are creating. By supporting regionally grown grain with the ability to adapt to a changing climate together we create a more resilient future food system.