Talking about a bread revolution

It’s World Bread Day (16 October) and Venerdi Breads founder Tim Grainger shares the ways in which a bread revolution has been quietly happening, with more variety available to consumers now than before.

A report from the Medical Journal of Australia found that despite one per cent of the population being diagnosed with coeliac disease, one in four surveyed choose to eat gluten free.

Grainger told Food & Drink Business that that bread has needed to evolve to meet the range of dietary requirements and preferences today.

“There are lots of opinions on what health and wellness means, so there needs to be different types of bread products to cater for this. Overall people now want to eat bread that is nourishing and leaves them feeling great. It’s got to taste good, but they also want it to be good for them,” said Grainger.

“Because consumer demands are changing, bread makers need to innovate around that. As an innovative company that is using new flours we are in a constant rapid learning phase to create quality products and build supply chains that meet the changing tastes.”

On a production side, Grainger said bread makers are constantly experimenting ways to achieve stability in a loaf without the use of wheat flour.

“When we have branched out into different flours, the way they interact with each other is complex and so we often can’t predict what will happen – it requires a lot of trial and error,” he told F&DB.

“Also, because we are using more organic, natural flours we often get seasonal variations that we need to work with. 

“Because we’ve chosen not to restrict ourselves to wheat, the opportunities for us as bread makers are endless. We get to incorporate so many interesting, nutritional ingredients and are both functional and flavoursome.”

Venerdi was established in 2002, and develops a range of gluten-free breads, bagels, buns and pizza bases under the Venerdi, Paleo, Gluten Freedom brands.