Rise up to funding challenge

Scotland The Bread - an innovative social business working to grow better grain and bake better bread with the common purposes of nourishment, sustainability and food sovereignty - has launched a Crowdfunder to support its unique community engagement work.

The organisation runs two projects, working in partnership with communities across Scotland to introduce local people to their nutritious grains and support them in developing the knowledge and skills to grow, process and bake these into delicious bread. 

Scotland The Bread was a key delivery partner in the Bread Matters project  ‘Flour to the People’, which was launched in July 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic led to unprecedented bread and flour shortages. The main objective was to work alongside community food hubs and bakers to ensure that low income communities across Scotland had access to more nutritious flour and the skills and knowledge to transform it into delicious bread.

Since its launch, Flour to the People has run 10 community baking events and shared over 300kg of nutritious, high quality flour with communities across Scotland.  Breadmaking has been used as a means of social interaction, particularly valuable during a time of forced physical distancing, as well as engaging communities in the movement towards a healthy, sustainable, equitable and locally-controlled flour and bread supply.

Andrew Whitley, co-founder of Scotland The Bread commented; “The Crowdfunder will help increase access to our beautiful and nutritious flour which can be used by community bakers to create tasty, digestible bread. This in turn needs to get to people struggling with inequalities in the food system, so they’re not relying on the intensively produced, nutritionally poor loaves of bread we typically see on supermarket shelves. The deal for far too long has been that if you don’t have much money, you get to eat the most nutritionally impoverished foods. These projects, Flour to the People and Soil to Slice, harness community action and energy to challenge these assumptions so that we can increase local resilience and ensure that everyone shares in the benefits of flavoursome and nutritious bread made from diverse, locally-grown grains."

In recognition of its innovative work, Flour to the People has been nominated in the Food Innovation category of the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2021, with the winners due to be announced at the end of November.

The timing coincides with the launch of this ambitious new Crowdfunder, supported by Community Shares Scotland, which aims to raise at least £20,000 to support the expansion of Scotland The Bread’s community engagement projects. The team want to help more people to become active food citizens and empower communities to create, participate in and celebrate a more local and healthy flour and bread supply.

Morven Lyon, Programme Manager at Community Shares Scotland said; “Having supported Scotland The Bread with a successful community share offer in 2016, we are excited to be working with this brilliant and influential organisation once again. Community Shares Scotland is currently piloting an extension of our funded support to include donation based crowdfunding and Flour to the People is a perfect community project to kickstart this new development.”

Launched in 2012 and based at the Bowhouse food hub in St Monan’s in Fife, Scotland The Bread has been at the forefront of the Real Bread movement in the UK, taking an innovative and collaborative approach to developing a more nutritious grain, flour and bread supply chain. It brings together plant breeders, farmers, millers, bakers, nutritionists and citizens with the common purpose of producing nutritious grain, milling it close to home and using it to make wholesome, slowly-fermented bread that everyone can enjoy. 

The Crowdfunder launched on 22 November and runs until 31st December. Keep an eye on their website and social media for more details (Facebook: @ScotlandTheBread / Instagram: @Scotlandthebread / Twitter: @scotlandbread).