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£5 for a loaf of bread

(60 Posts)
Mollygo Sun 06-Sept-26 20:17:26

Evidently, I just heard on Countryfile, it’s up to us whether we spend £5 on a healthy loaf of bread.
True, but everyone can’t afford that.

petra Sun 06-Sept-26 20:30:23

When/ if enough farmers adopt his farming and milling process the price will come down.
Now that the powers that be have accepted that we are at the beginning of a period of global warming our farmers will not be able to farm with the seeds we have been using for eons.
So it looks very much like future generations are going to have to pay more for a loaf. At least it was very good quality.

MT62 Sun 06-Sept-26 20:34:18

I would do without before I paid that.

Desdemona Sun 06-Sept-26 20:45:17

Five quid? Nah.

Sago Sun 06-Sept-26 20:45:58

I make my own bread and can honestly say for the ingredients time involved and electricity/gas £5 is a not a bad price.
Obviously baking on a commercial scale is cheaper but it takes time and skill.

A sourdough loaf takes me 24-36 hours to produce.

Patsy70 Sun 06-Sept-26 20:51:45

We’ve made our own bread for about 20 years now. Only occasionally buy from a local artisan baker.

Jaxjacky Sun 06-Sept-26 20:53:18

I wouldn’t be bothered as I rarely eat bread, but an awful lot of people would be.

Fallingstar Sun 06-Sept-26 21:00:16

I love bread and we eat quite a lot of it, I will spend a bit more on an artisan loaf occasionally but £5 is steep imho and we are by no means well off enough to pay they kind of money regularly just for bread as well as everything else we have to pay for.

Maggiemaybe Sun 06-Sept-26 21:51:14

I recently rediscovered my breadmaker, inspired by a news article about the additives that go into mass-produced bread, and I can make healthy and tasty loaves with very little effort. There’s an excellent choice of bread flours on offer nowadays and at least we know what’s in the final product. The breadmaker was a charity shop find as well, so even better.

M0nica Sun 06-Sept-26 22:41:35

I would do anything rather than have to eat a supermarket loaf, full of chemicals and ingredients never found in traditional bread. One loaf I picked up recently had over 10 ingredients in it compared with 3 in a basic home made and artisan loaf.

Food in Britain is far cheaper than many other countries and always has been and you only have to look around or talk to people or read the reports coming out of government and universities to know that it is doing the health of the country no good at all.

Longevity is rising but years of healthy life are not. Too many of us are chronically ill before we retire and then live for another 25 years unable to enjoy our retirement because of our health problems.

The main cause for this is the way manufactures are adulterating and contaminating our food with chemicals and denatured products to make them cheaper

madeleine45 Sun 06-Sept-26 23:17:02

I always remember my mothers scandalized comment when a large loaf went up to 1 shilling from 10 pence. That rather dates me I know! I used to make a lot of my own wholemeal bread with poppy seeds and things on top. The loaves would turn out even better if I was particularly mad with some politician or that Bernard Mannings , so the loaves got very well thumped and kneaded. Used to make my own jam too, and what a difference , to offer home made fresh bread with lovely strawberry jam on it, not a slice of white bread and cheap jam. Mmn that was something I shouldnt have thought about, could just eat a slice now!

BlueBelle Sun 06-Sept-26 23:21:18

I pay £1.65 for my favourite supermarket loaf and I enjoy it only have two slices a day, toast for breakfast. Life’s too short to get too bothered about a loaf of bread.

Elrel Sun 06-Sept-26 23:34:03

The specific bread on Countryfile was rye, made by a local artisan baker. Cheaper mass produced loaves would still be available in supermarkets.

MayBee70 Sun 06-Sept-26 23:46:33

Wasn’t it rye bread that caused ergot poisoning in the Middle Ages shock?

Grammaretto Mon 07-Sept-26 00:00:40

I pay more than £5 for an excellent large tin. I slice it and freeze it and toast it when needed.
Occasionally the food bank/community fridge has M&S sourdough loaves on a stand outside for the taking.

For 15 years I baked bread for our local gallery café, twice a week. I charged for the ingredients. Café had 2 loaves - we had one. but now on my own I would eat too much bread.

nanna8 Mon 07-Sept-26 00:07:26

Same as a good loaf costs here. They do not have the same amount of preservatives,either, so you either eat it quickly or freeze it. They are lovely,though. Nice pumpkin bread,too.

pably15 Mon 07-Sept-26 00:13:54

I'd make my own before I'd pay £5 for a loaf

karmalady Mon 07-Sept-26 12:08:32

I do make my own, always. Best organic flour, always wholemeal, maybe with rye and often with a grist containing various ground seeds. It takes me about 36 hours to produce a sourdough loaf. £5 is well worth it for a good loaf with good ingredients and quite honestly is cheap at that

I never buy mass produced `plastic` bread, it is cheap because of the poor ingredients and the shortcuts. I am what I eat

henetha Mon 07-Sept-26 12:10:29

I would never pay that. Local bakeries do lovely bread at a far cheaper price.

Mollygo Mon 07-Sept-26 12:12:23

pably15

I'd make my own before I'd pay £5 for a loaf

Well done to them for setting up a business.

It was the implication that those who weren’t buying it weren’t doing the best for their families that irritated me.
I don’t know how big the loaves were, but slicing it and freezing it just adds to the cost.
I like rye bread, but the minute you add artisan to any product it puts the cost up. A bit like.adding Ye Olde used to do.

Cossy Mon 07-Sept-26 12:27:11

Mollygo I too saw this yesterday on the show, and there was a real feeling of “you’re not doing your best for your family” if you don’t buy this!

I wouldn’t, and have never, paid £5 for a loaf of bread.

Graphite Mon 07-Sept-26 12:32:06

I didn't hear that at all.

They were talking about rye bread. Master baker Aidan Monks made it clear the bags of flour cost double - 54 minutes in the programme.

Presenter Anita Rani said not everybody can afford £5 for a loaf of bread. Monks explained the value was in the additional nutrition in the bread (which his wife had explained) over what is mass produced.

The same applies to most foods.

Here’s their 950g Five Grain Rye Tin - costs £5

lovinglyartisan.com/product/five-grain-rye-tin/

You would pay around £2.00 for half weight rye loaf in the supermarket and you wouldn't know where the grain was sourced.

The average supermarket sliced loaf in a plastic wrapper weighs 800g.

merlotgran Mon 07-Sept-26 12:55:08

A decent gluten free loaf costs nearly £4 and it’s not very big so I make my own whenever possible. The ingredients are not cheap though.

mokryna Mon 07-Sept-26 14:01:35

This last summer in the UK I found this loaf, a bit more expensive than some but better taste, I thought. My problem was that I had to drive 20 mins to that supermarket which stocked it In fact I bought two at a time and froze one.

Harris27 Mon 07-Sept-26 14:13:09

I couldn’t afford that and I love bread.