Happy Christmas & Thank you!

What a year!

It’s been fantastic. Thank you to everyone that has made 2013 a real success. We’ve grown from strength to strength over the year, increasing our staff team, taking on new directors, extending our selection of bread & cakes, developing new courses and pop-up events and meeting lots of new faces in the cookery school, bakery & on our local high street in Stirchley.

Thank you to all our customers, friends, colleagues & families. Special mention also goes to our:

Bread Bond Holders – without whom none of this would have been possible – thank you
Bread Club members – for returning to the bakery week after week to pick up baked goodies!
Loaf Directors – Matt, Michelle, Russ… and former directors Tim & Ria
Loaf Staff – Andy, Dom, Jane, Nancy, Sarah & Tom
Cookery School Guest Tutors – Haseen, Lap, Lizzy, Mohini, Rachel & Steve
Everards Brewery – our landlords who have helped us grow on Stirchley high street
Stirchey Stores Members – for sharing the Loaf love by selling our bread & cakes in the shop
Creative & green fingered friends – Clare, Fraser, Jack, Jacob, Kerry, Mike, Paul & Walter
Fellow Food Lovers – Brad, Carl, Chris, Krishan, Lap, Nico, Nick, Vic
Fordall Farm – a community owned business who are a real inspiration to us.

And many, many more… there are just too many to mention!

Loaf in Lights - Christmas 2013

Have a very Happy Christmas and promise of a wonderful new year.

We look forward to developing new & exciting projects in 2014 and hope you will join us for the ride!

From the Loaf Team

x x x

* Christmas Closure – The Loaf Community Bakery, Cookery School and Stirchley Stores will be closed from Wednesday 25th December, re-opening on Thursday 2nd January 2014. Bread Subscribers – we will be baking for you again on Friday 3rd January.

Christmas Goodies from the Bakery

The mincemeat that we made back in October is maturing nicely, and quite frankly we’ve held off long enough. Now December is upon us, we’ll be unleashing glorious mince pies on you every day in the bakery. We have a deliciously rich mincemeat, which will be stuffed into our own sweet shortcrust pastry and baked fresh daily.

PRE-ORDER STOLLEN – This year reserve your Christmas Stollen (for collection in the shop on 23 – 24 December only). We do not offer a postal service. Our usual selection of bread produced in the Loaf Community Bakery will also be available to buy as usual in the Stirchley Stores co-operative community shop.

Christmas Stollen

CHRISTMAS OPENING HOURS – The Loaf Community Bakery, Cookery School and Stirchley Stores will be closed from Wednesday 25th December, re-opening on Thursday 2nd January 2014.

STIRCHLEY BREWHOUSE – We’re taking a small break from Stirchley Brewhouse throughout December. It’s all hands on deck in the bakery instead in the run up to Christmas. The smell of seasonal dried fruit & spices is amazing. Brewhouse will be back again in early 2014.

CHRISTMAS OPENING HOURS @ Stirchley Stores:

Tuesday – Friday 2 – 7pm

Saturday 8.15am – 2pm

Monday 23rd December 2 – 7pm

Tuesday 24 December 8.15am – 2pm

Closed 25th December – 1st January.

Re-opening on Thursday 2nd January 2014, 2 – 7pm.

Birmingham Mail feature Syrian inspired bread for Oxfam appeal

Last Saturday 20 July, our bakers teamed up Oxfam Midlands to bake a one-off Syrian yoghurt flatbread to help raise awareness of Oxfam’s Syria Crisis Appeal. We’re pleased to say that the Syrian bread was a huge success and sold out within an hour. We were also featured with Oxfam Midlands in today’s Birmingham Mail (Thursday 25 July, page 16).

We’d like to thank all our customers for their enthusiasm on the day, and Dom for baking the bread in the Loaf Community Bakery. We would also encourage everyone to continue their support by visiting the Oxfam website or reading our previous Syria inspired bread blog.

Bakers use loaf to boost charity - Birmingham Mail (25 July 2013) — Bakers use loaf to boost charity – Birmingham Mail (25 July 2013)

Loaf, Building Community Through Food

As a social enterprise Loaf was set up with the purpose “ to promote good food and healthy living in communities and build community through food ”. This means putting our profits towards social projects, primarily in our local community.

This month we welcomed year 6 children and parents from our local Stirchley Community School on Pershore Road to Loaf Cookery School for their very own bread making workshop. The afternoon was a huge success and as teacher Karen Sweeney said “They had an amazing time! The children they were raving about it!”. With three year 6 workshops in total, and comments shared that it was one of the best workshops we’ve ever been to, we’ll take that as a thumbs up! In June we also hosted an enjoyable bread workshop with adults who are deaf and hard of hearing through the work of national charity deafPLUS.

For more Stirchley Community School workshop photos visit their school website – you may even spot a few familiar local faces.

Stirchley Community School Bread Workshop at Loaf — Year 6 pupils, parents & teachers from Stirchley Community School enjoy making bread at Loaf

Parents & children from Stirchley Community School at Loaf — Parents and children from Stirchley Community School at Loaf

We also offer occasional work placements to individuals with a passion to develop a professional career in baking, which this month included Megan Jones who is studying for a Diploma in Artisan Baking at the prestigious School of Artisan Food.

Megan Jones on student placement at Loaf from The School of Artisan Food — Megan Jones on student placement at Loaf from the prestigious School of Artisan Food

Loaf reaches new heights

This month Stirchley featured in the May edition of Brussels Airline’s bthere magazine.

Described as a ‘destination for creativity, comedy and exciting cuisine’, it included us at Loaf and celebrated other local community food and arts initiatives such as Stirchley Community Market. Stirchley seems to be making a name for itself – not only in the UK, but now internationally!

To read more visit the be the b there website or download the full magazine as a pdf. We’re on page 74.

Brussels Airlines bthere Magazine - May 2013 — Brussels Airlines bthere Magazine – May 2013

Launching – The Loaf Loyalty Card

Last week we sent whispers around that we would soon be launching a Loaf Loyalty Card. Well the card is now up and running and available in Stirchley Stores. Just pick one up or ask at the till.

The Loaf Loyalty Card is our way of saying thank you to all our regular bread customers and local supporters, without which we would not exist. So, thank you!