£5 for a loaf of bread

It’s just shocking, the one staple that can fill a hungry tummy is becoming out of reach 🥲

I have stopped eating supermarket bread because I had several choking-type episodes over a couple of years and each case the cause was factory bread.

Now I only eat traditional bread, whether, white, brown or granary. I have not had a single choking episode since I stopped eating standard supermarket bread.

also usually make my own stuffing and Christmas puddings using a lot of breadcrumbs. Last Christmas, living in a new area and having not yet found a decent baker, I used supermarket bread. I made 3 Christmas puddings as usual and a big batch of stuffing. Thankfully there were only 3 of us on Christmas day but the puddings and stuffing were so disgusting two and a half puddings and most of the stuffing went in the bin.

It's false economy to buy cheap supermarket bread.

Those who say they make their own; Have you factored in the cost of ingredients and fuel?

79p Nevilles (in Tesco) for a white/wholemeal loaf

Last week we had a thread berating the SNP for their policy to:

establish statutory price ceilings on a basket of 20 to 50 essential food items at large supermarkets … crucially, this will be implemented alongside a robust support framework designed to shield Scottish producers with support mechanisms and monitoring to ensure that this will not be allowed to impact on farmers and food producers and we will work with them to ensure supermarkets make the change.

www.gransnet.com/forums/food/1361232-Scottish-Government-Proposes-Price-Cap-On-Essential-Foods

Nevertheless, people argued this would be detrimental to farmers.

At the other end of the scale we have artisan/organic producers whose products are more expensive because they are already paying farmers a fair price and aren’t mass producing.

Now people are complaining that the end result is too expensive.

Which is it you want?

I never cease to be amazed by people who won't pay a fair price for a loaf of bread. Bread is a staple, it should be as good as it gets and we should be prepared to pay for the good quality flour, the skill that goes into making it, and the taste of something other than supermarket cotton wool that's full of additives we don't need. To say one wouldn't pay a fiver for a loaf is to totally misunderstand the process of producing proper bread - and unfortunately, to bolster supermarket sales of ultra-processed stuff that clogs up guts and causes IBS. Surely far better to buy one good loaf a week than several that are filled with preservatives and other things that really defy the title of bread.

Is this AI hype ? Not heard of a £5.00 loaf

Bea65

Is this AI hype ? Not heard of a £5.00 loaf

The OP said that it was on countryfile which it was.

GoldenAge

I never cease to be amazed by people who won't pay a fair price for a loaf of bread. Bread is a staple, it should be as good as it gets and we should be prepared to pay for the good quality flour, the skill that goes into making it, and the taste of something other than supermarket cotton wool that's full of additives we don't need. To say one wouldn't pay a fiver for a loaf is to totally misunderstand the process of producing proper bread - and unfortunately, to bolster supermarket sales of ultra-processed stuff that clogs up guts and causes IBS. Surely far better to buy one good loaf a week than several that are filled with preservatives and other things that really defy the title of bread.

Unfortunately people are going to have to get used to paying more for their bread or accept more poisons that pad out the loaves they buy now.
The yeald on wheat is predicted to be well down on what we usually harvest.

No, of course its not AI. The award-winning bakers were featured on BBC Countryfile. I linked upthread to their retail site where you can buy the kind of loaf they made which was sampled by the presenter.

Supermarkets are charging similar prices for rye bread where the source of the ingredients is not known.

Gail’s in the High Street sells a 860g Rye and Sourdough loaf for £5.30.

I buy a wholemeal loaf with seeds from Waitrose and keep it in the freezer, toasting it from frozen. It lasts about 10 days so the cost per day is negligible.
Cheap brown bread is very sweet nowadays, following the American model of cane syrup with everything.

The loaves sold at my local farmers market which are made at a nearby corn mill are this sort of price and are beautiful.
Costly I know if you go through a lot of bread but lovely for using a couple of times a week (it’s sliced and goes in the freezer).

GoldenAge

I never cease to be amazed by people who won't pay a fair price for a loaf of bread. Bread is a staple, it should be as good as it gets and we should be prepared to pay for the good quality flour, the skill that goes into making it, and the taste of something other than supermarket cotton wool that's full of additives we don't need. To say one wouldn't pay a fiver for a loaf is to totally misunderstand the process of producing proper bread - and unfortunately, to bolster supermarket sales of ultra-processed stuff that clogs up guts and causes IBS. Surely far better to buy one good loaf a week than several that are filled with preservatives and other things that really defy the title of bread.

I get all that - but try telling that to the single mum who's struggling to get by and can buy cheap bread and baked beans from the supermarket to feed her kids for a lot less than a £5 loaf. Some people don't have the luxury of choice - that's a fact.

As Merlotgran says the gluten free loaves are expensive and full of additives. I haven’t tried making my own and in consequence eat very little bread now.

try telling that to the single mum who's struggling

Here we go again, criticising people who want to eat a healthier diet. The problem isn’t the price of food but our high rent, low wage economy.

Are you saying that small bakeries and other independent producers shouldn’t produce qualify food because some people won’t be able to afford it? Do you feel the same about cars, clothes, holidays and other consumer goods? What about brands versus own-brands?

I would love to see everyone enjoying good quality food but until government addresses the factors that keep some people poor, to stop wealth trickling upwards to wealthy landlords and CEOs of large businesses who do not pay a living wage, nothing will change.

I posted a link to the online shop of the bakery featured on Countryfile where you can put in a regular order for the bread they featured. I don’t imagine many people order in qualities. Maybe they treat themselves to a luxury loaf every two weeks or once a month.

Graphite

^try telling that to the single mum who's struggling^

Here we go again, criticising people who want to eat a healthier diet. The problem isn’t the price of food but our high rent, low wage economy.

Are you saying that small bakeries and other independent producers shouldn’t produce qualify food because some people won’t be able to afford it? Do you feel the same about cars, clothes, holidays and other consumer goods? What about brands versus own-brands?

I would love to see everyone enjoying good quality food but until government addresses the factors that keep some people poor, to stop wealth trickling upwards to wealthy landlords and CEOs of large businesses who do not pay a living wage, nothing will change.

I posted a link to the online shop of the bakery featured on Countryfile where you can put in a regular order for the bread they featured. I don’t imagine many people order in qualities. Maybe they treat themselves to a luxury loaf every two weeks or once a month.

I'm not saying that at all, so please don't twist my words. Where am I criticising anyone who wants to eat healthily? I said I understood what was being said, and I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I would also love to see a world in which everyone was able to enjoy good quality food every day. But it is a fact that not everyone is in a position to be able to opt for the £5 loaf, however much they might like to do so.
And on the health issue, I have IBS (along with other digestive conditions) and there are times when I experience a bit of a flare-up of these, and ordinary white bread is pretty much all I can tolerate. It's easy to be judgemental of what others are buying when you've no idea of why they are buying what they do.

I usually just buy a simple wholemeal thick sliced loaf but recently I've been buying nice big wholemeal rolls. As we normally toast them I can keep them in the chiller drawers where they stay fresh for ages. They're lovely with a poached egg and a grilled home-grown tomato for breakfast.
My son makes all his own bread from a variety of delicious flours and I'm sure it costs him more than £5 per loaf.

The big supermarkets sell rye bread at this price. Gail’s in the High Street sell rye bread at this price, in fact higher for a smaller loaf.

The bakers featured on this programme are using locally grown grains rather than imports to make a quality product with flour milled on their own premises (and using all the by-products).

I don’t understand why the price of rye bread is suddenly an issue especially when the baker made it clear the flour they buy is expensive (double the price he said).

Anita Rani said not everybody can afford £5 a loaf as if it’s an everyday occurrence. I doubt it is for the vast majority of people whatever their income, just an occasional treat.

Grammaretto

It's false economy to buy cheap supermarket bread.

Those who say they make their own; Have you factored in the cost of ingredients and fuel?

I’ve just done a quick tot up of what it cost me today to make a big 2lb loaf in my breadmaker with half white, half wholemeal rye flour (both organic, though obviously not milled on the premises ), and it came to under £1.80. The flour cost around £1.10, yeast, sunflower oil, milk powder, sugar, salt and AI’s estimated running costs made up the rest. I’m not considering my time because it’s negligible - throwing in the ingredients and giving the pan a wipe down afterwards.

Of course I’m not making any judgement calls on this. I wouldn’t expect a busy working parent to be making their own and you have to actually own a breadmaker in the first place to do it this way (I think mine cost £12 from a charity shop a few years ago, so owes me nothing). I’m just giving the estimated costs out of interest and for comparison.

And even though I say it myself, it’s delicious.

Here we go again someone waving the impoverished single mother with multiple children, as a reason for not helping people eat better. Surely she, of all people would benefit from not having to eat adulterated food.

There will always be a proportion of people whose incomes make life very difficult and for whom eating good quality food is almost impossible, but that should never stop us constantly trying to improve things - and most improvements start with the better off and and spread downwards as they become cheaper. All new houses now have central heating, electricity, indoor loos, and running hot and cold water in bathroom(s) and kitchen. 100 years ago these would have been the prerogative off the wealthy.

No doubt this hypothetical woman was called forward when laws were past stopping people adulterating sugar with sand and dilutng mlk with water. Adulterated sugar and milk was all she could afford.

That’s useful to know, Maggiemaybe because it helps towards understanding why a seeded rye loaf produced by a business for commercial sale is priced at £5.

They do have milling costs and all the other costs of production, wages and other overheads.

Lovingly Artisan is not a hugely profitable business for a company which employed 30 people in 2024/25. Its creditors exceeded profits by roughly 50%.

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07161810/filing-history

I bake our bread. I worked out 800 g loaves (organic flour and electricity) cost £1.50. Bakeries pay costs, wages, electricity - must make money or close.

OH brought home a sourdough loaf, I tried a slice then left it for her, it got left 3 of 4 day, so I toasted it it was edible then.
I much prefer standard sliced at £1.20, £5 is bonkers but if you can afford it why not

I give up. People are deliberately twisting what I'm saying so I'm out of here now. What's the point?

I pay £3.40 for a large low GI loaf from our local family bakers.

We eat every bit of it, including crusts.

Freeze it and take out what we need daily.

It’s delicious, tasty, doesn’t go dry.

I feel we’ve reached the age when if we want it and can afford it, blow the cost.