Real Bread Campaign launches new sourdough standard

With the eighth annual Sourdough September approaching, the Real Bread Campaign has launched a sourdough companion to the Real Bread Loaf Mark.

With the eighth annual Sourdough September approaching, the Real Bread Campaign has launched a sourdough companion to the Real Bread Loaf Mark. The Campaign calls for a legal definition of sourdough and mandatory full ingredient labelling for all loaves. In the meantime, the new mark is a visual aid for shoppers looking for genuine sourdough bread, helping bakers and retailers to give their customers an at-a-glance assurance of which loaves, rolls, pizzas and son are.

Bakers sign an annual usage agreement that they will only display The Real Bread Loaf Mark to market products made without the use of processing aids, chemical leavening or other additives. They agree only to use The Sourdough Loaf Mark to market real bread that is leavened only using a live sourdough starter culture.

Real Bread Campaign co-ordinator Chris Young said: “With no legal definition of sourdough in the UK and elsewhere, people are at the mercy of industrial loaf fabricators, multiple retailers and even some smaller operators choosing to use the word disingenuously or downright misleadingly. This new Sourdough Loaf Mark is a stopgap symbol to support real bread bakers, and for shoppers seeking a simple solution to shunning sourfaux for any and all reasons they do so.”