Do Sourdough

Andrew Whitley has 'changed the way we think about bread' (BBC Food and Farming award judges). A baker for over 30 years, his company Bread Matters runs some of the most authoritative bread-making courses in the UK popular with enthusiastic amateurs and professional cooks alike. Originally a producer with the BBC Russian Service, Andrew left in 1976 to found the Village Bakery in the Lake District. Over the next two decades it became one of the country's leading organic bakeries and the first to supply Waitrose. In 2002 he did a Masters in Food Policy and wrote Bread Matters (Fourth Estate, 2006). It became a bestseller and won the Andre Simon 2006 Food Award. In 2008, he co-founded the Real Bread Campaign to bring good bread to every neighbourhood in the UK. In 2017, he founded research charity Scotland The Bread to re-establish a Scottish flour and bread supply that is healthy, equitable, locally controlled and sustainable. He installed a mill where the project's diverse grains are grown to produce organic wholemeal flour. Committed as ever to food justice, Andrew is setting new standards for a "People's Bread" made with organic wholemeal flour and sourdough, and is fermenting plans for a community bakery and bread lab.