JOIN FIELD BAKERY BREAD CLUB

Bread Club is a bread subscription which runs throughout the year providing members sourdough bread which supports our small food network between you, me the baker and Fred the Farmer who grows 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. Workshops are taught by me and guest Bakers 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 (handy for those Bread Club members who pick 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 connect its members to the land that can feed them locally.

Not many, ever question the main ingredient - Flour - that goes into bread and all grain based foods. Grain is often seen as a commodity, grown as a monoculture, often traded vast distances, before mainly being refined into white flour, its full environmental and nutritional impact is hard to trace. This flour in turn is fast fermented into loaves severely lacking in nutrition, it has come to be a symbol of how the big industrial food 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, we are 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!

So why be part of a Bread Subscription?

Bread Club is a commitment to supporting:

• A bakery using 100% stoneground flour from grain sourced directly from Gothelney Farm and other forward thinking agroecological farms in the UK. You are welcome to visit the Bakery on a Saturday morning and see the progression of next years loaves growing in the surrounds fields!

• Real food production by skilled bakers, natural fermentation and NOT fast yeast and dough conditioners.

• Eeking up the wholegrain proportion in our bread alongside high extraction stoneground flour for members to benefit from the nutrition and flavour of wholegrain whilst using some of my Baker expertise to maintaining a light enjoyable sourdough.

Subscribing to Bread Club supports the Bakery and Farm financially 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 manage the process of freshly stonemilling Gothelney grown grain which cuts any waste in production and as a solo Baker it 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, your bread is my priority in production and therefore its a reserved loaf which, if you pick up from Gothelney Farm you get to jump the queue on Saturday mornings and bag your bread! OR get your loaf delivered to your neighbourhood pick up box in Bristol which makes securing your future local bread supply super easy, come pandemic or global commodity food system collapse. 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?

Pick up for your 1 loaf is each SATURDAY for those in Bread Club picking up directly from Gothelney Farm.

For Bristol Bread Club members pick up is every other WEDNESDAY from one of 4 Pick Up points. Your 2 loaves will be wrapped, labeled with its ingredients and have your name clearly marked on them.

Gothelney Farm pick ups are between 9-2PM each saturday, Bristol pick ups are anytime from 2PM every other Wednesday (on the dates below), the earlier to the drop time the fresher your loaf will be!

As a member you receive the occasional email containing farm news, any 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. Any updates on weeks off from my end will also be communicated by email.

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

Each week you will be charged through Stripe from our website £4.50 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 admin time spent communicating to the membership.

• 26p of which is a transaction fee.

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 true cost of food grown locally.

Flexibility. Need a week off or to cancel your subscription?

If you require a week off for holiday I can simply refund (minus the transaction fee 25p) you for that week, 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.

The weekly email is also the channel through which I communicate when I’m taking the occasional Bakers week off to rest my baker hands! I take a total of 8 weeks off within a year (meaning if you take no breaks you’ll only ever pay for a total of 10 months of the 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. Any weeks off on my part will simply be refunded to you on that week, an email will notify you.

When you purchase the subscription through the Squarespace SHOP link below please specify your chosen PICK UP POINT

PICK UP OPTIONS ARE:

• Field Bakery, Gothelney Farm, Somerset (this is 1 loaf per week, pick up is 10-2PM each saturday.)

In Bristol:

• Eastfield Road, Henleaze

• Purple Patch CSA Boiling wells, St Werburghs

• Mansfield Street, Bedminster

• Colston Road, Easton

• William St, Redfield

These drop off points are hosted by my generous wonderful! friends and fellow Bread Clubbers. They have heard me chat bread for years! seen the Bakery come into reality and wanted to support it. Plus they enjoy the thanks they get for helping get good bread out to their neighbours! Over time I’m sure you’ll meet 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 payment is complete. 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