Real Bread Campaign coordinator Chris Young discovered the true meaning of loaf in late 2008, during a week at Schumacher College, led by baker, educator and Bread Matters author, Andrew Whitley. By the end of the course, Chris was spluttering: ‘I can’t believe what they are doing to my bread! What can I do about it?’ Andrew pointed Chris to the food and farming charity Sustain, with which he was due to launch the Real Bread Campaign the following week. A few months later, Chris spotted a note in the Campaign’s e-newsletter calling for a volunteer and he quit his job to pick up the Real Bread baton.
Chris has since overseen the publication of the book Knead to Know: the guide to running a Community Supported Bakery or home-based microbakery; the Lessons in Loaf and Bake Your Lawn initiatives that have helped at least 10,000 kids learn to make (and in many cases grow) Real Bread; the annual Real Bread Maker Week, Sourdough September and Local Loaves for Lammas awareness drives; the reports Are Supermarket Bloomers Pants?, A Wholegrain of Truth? and Rising Up; and edits the Campaign’s True Loaf magazine, and its sibling The Jellied Eel for London Food Link.
The Campaign’s membership network is open to everyone who bakes Real Bread or simply cares about their daily loaf, and has so far attracted thousands of members from more than twenty countries.
