Copy
21 December, 2021

Hello,

This is the weekly newsletter from Loaf in Stirchley, keeping you abreast of our bakery and cookery school.

This week we cast our eyes back over another challenging but ultimately rewarding year. From heritage grain to grassroots football, real bread to real wages, pasta popups to tiny croissants, it all happened at Loaf, officially the best worker co-operative in the UK!

🥖 Pre-orders are closed now for the year. But do not fear. We’re using those numbers to bake as much as we can for the shelves so you should get what you need, especially if you arrive around opening time.

🥖 Please note that on Friday we open at 8am and close at noon!

🥖 Lunches will be served as normal on Wednesday and Thursday. Scroll to the bottom for this week’s lunch menu.

🥖 New dates for the cookery school will be announced very soon and we’ll send a quick newsletter with them once they’re up.

Our opening hours this week are:
Wednesday 22nd: 12pm – 6pm
Thursday 23rd: 12pm – 6pm
Xmas Eve: 8am – 12pm

We’re then closed for a fortnight to rest and recuperate, re-opening on Wednesday 12 January 2022.

Loaf’s year in review

We’ve been archiving pieces from the newsletter on our website and thought we’d pick out a few moments from 2021 to revisit.

January

Straight after Christmas we were in lockdown with a new variant tearing through the population. To keep trading we split the baking team into two pods, moved the office to home-working and instigated a time-slot collection system, explaining it at length in this post.

Omicron now threatens a dose of deja-vu. Fingers crossed, eh?

February

Real Bread Week took place under a bit of cloud, but we were keen to mark it. Along with the co-operative movement, the Real Bread Campaign a touchstone for why Loaf exists.

March

As a majority-female-run business we’re always keen to mark International Women’s Day, and this year made the connection with the 1917 women’s march for “Bread and Peace” in Petrograd which led directly to the Russian Revolution!

The revolution, as any A-level history student will tell you, had many causes, but it’s not a surprise to see bread and righteously angry women right there at the start.

March also saw us bake with Wildfarmed grain for the first time, starting our heritage grain adventure in earnest.

April

April saw us finally replace Loaf’s ancient bread oven with a disconcertingly similar looking but massively superior top-of-the-range piece of kit. Getting it into the building, and then wiring it up, was a bit more work than we’d hoped, but the results were splendid.

May

During the lockdowns we’d been supplying bread to organisations combating food poverty and helping those who fell through an increasing number of society’s cracks. The Active Wellbeing Society, a fellow co-op, turned out to be one of the key players in organising this grassroots effort, and we were keen to understand more about how and why they did it.

June

With restrictions lifting in the summer and a desire to do something fun again, the pasta-fanatics among us conceived Ragu Time, a pop-up pasta spectacular!

We also decided to refresh our commitment to and understanding of the co-operative movement and sent Pete to remotely attend the Co-op Congress, from which he reported at length.

July

July saw us win Worker Co-op Of The Year, which was a tremendous thing, highlighting not just what we do but how we do it. Thanks to everyone who voted!

To celebrate we baked the world’s smallest croissant.

August

Molly shared her playlist, Music For Croissants, as carefully constructed as the pastries she makes to it.

The heritage grain adventure continued as we packed most of Loaf off to Somerset for an intensive day at Field Bakery learning how to work with a wider variety of wheat.

September

We made contact with Mill Farm, a heritage grain grower near Worcester, and popped down for a fun and highly educational visit. We’re intend on sourcing our flour from them next year and maybe in time establish a Midlands Grain Network of growers, millers and bakers.

We also made a big deal of joining the Real Living Wage foundation, given that the food service industry has historically paid poverty wages.

And of course, we sponsored our first football team! Bournville FC U12 Girls squad now play with the Loaf logo on their shirts!

October

Tom and Jane Baker, who founded Loaf in their kitchen in 2009, sent A Postcard From Machynlleth, updating us on their homestead bakery in the Welsh valleys.

We also sourced two new local honey suppliers, one of whom has apiaries in Stirchley itself. It doesn’t get more local than that!

And, of course, Molly made meatballs!

November

November saw our most impactful newsletter as we wrote about running a baking class for autistic students at Baskerville School. An off-hand comment at the end saying we’d like to do more of this kind of thing has prompted a deluge of emails from teachers and we’ll be making plans to develop this side of the cookery school in the new year. Stay tuned for an exciting new chapter!

Speaking of which, we formally relaunched the cookery school this month, opening up bookings for classes from January through March. After 18 months of shutdown, demand was high and we’re looking forward to teaching full classes very soon.

December

December means Christmas which fills the newsletter with mince pies and festive treats, but we did run Rachel’s now legendary Advent Treasure Hunt across Stirchley again. You can see all the clues and winners archived on our Instagram.

Goodbyes and hellos

Thanks to strong bakery sales and the furlough scheme we didn’t have to reduce the size of Team Loaf during the pandemic, but we did say goodbye to a couple of members. Phil (above) joined his partner in moving to Italy while Valentina was awarded a research fellowship that took her to Canada.

Dorit joined us to run the shop and is already an invaluable member of the team, as I’m sure you’ll all agree. Meanwhile we hope to have some news on new bakery staff in the new year.

A big thank you

Our status as a community bakery is dependent on being accepted by the community, and you have shown that to be the case again and again over the last two years. We literally could not do what we do without you so we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Please have a safe and enjoyable Christmas and we look forward to seeing you again in the new year.

Lunches this week

NO LUNCHES ON FRIDAY!

This week's sourdough pizza is potato, onion, artichokes, stilton and mozzarella (V) on sale Wed and Thurs.

The soup pot will be serving the following:
Wed: Tarka daal curry (Ve) + sourdough bread.
Thu: Red cabbage soup with roasted sunflower seeds and thyme (Ve) + sea salt focaccia.

Savoury snacks include our famous sausage rolls and vegetable rolls, available all week, plus ham & cheese and pesto & cheese croissants Wednesday and Thursday.

Lunches are made fresh every day for 12 noon.

Our menu for the week – with ingredients and allergens – is on the website.

Upcoming classes

For the period January through March.

Classes for April through June will be released very soon. You can sign up to waiting lists for specific classes here.

The following classes have vacancies as of this newsletter being posted.

Thanks for all your continued support. See you next year!

Team Loaf: Neil, Martha, Molly, Sarah, Pete, Rach, Dorit & Nancy

loafonline.co.uk

 
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

Loyalty cards are back!

Have your baker's dozen on us!

Get a stamp for every loaf you buy and your 13th is free. Pick up a card at the shop counter.

Charity fundraising

From October through December we are collecting on behalf of Migrant Help. You can make a contribution with your online order or in the shop.

Find out about Migrant Help →

Fighting food poverty

Thanks to your support we are able to bake extra bread to give to the following organisations each week who are working across Birmingham to combat hunger.

If you know of other organisations fighting food poverty and hunger that can use up to 40 loaves a week, please let us know.
Copyright © 2021 Loaf, All rights reserved.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp