It’s January. It’s cold, windy and wet. But our beautiful wholesale artisan breads are baked with love, created to warm the spirit. And dark though the days may be, there’s never a dull day in the wonderful world of bread. We’ve scoured the interwebs for the planet’s best bread stories to delight you, inspire you, and warm the cockles of your heart. Here’s the latest news.

Tiny slice-like drone flies into Fukushima

It’s still a bit of a mystery. So, to find out what’s going on inside one of the reactors at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, they’re sending a slice-of-bread-sized drone in to have a look. The drone weighs just 185g, is excellent at manoeuvring and sends a continual feed of black and white footage to the operation centre.

Almost 13 years since the disaster, hundreds of tons of damaged radioactive fuel remain inside thanks to the magnitude 9.0 quake and the tsunami that followed. They’ve already tried robots, which failed because of the debris, radiation, and navigation issues. Now the tiny drone will attempt to collect data from the previously inaccessible areas.   

Yahoo goes bread crazy  

TikTok used to be our primary source of bread scandals, bread news and bread-inspired madness. Now Yahoo has taken over. Whether you visit Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Style, Yahoo Movies or Yahoo News, there are bread stories to enjoy.

Apparently, using ‘warm pickle juice’ instead of water when activating yeast infuses the juice throughout the entire loaf, giving you ‘bursts of pickle-y goodness in every single bite’. Who knew briny bread would prove such a hit? Then there’s beer bread, perhaps a little bit less unusual but taken to a new and thrilling place when baked with Guinness.

Matcha – AKA powdered green tea – is an acquired taste and plenty of bakers have been acquiring it. Yahoo suggests using it to step up your banana bread game, giving the bread an earthy flavour that complements the sweetness of the banana as well as turning your loaf ‘a beautiful, vibrant green colour’.

The thrills continue with the concept of using an air fryer to give garlic bread an amazing crunch by turning it crispy and brown via convection. The garlic bread cooks super-fast too, a lot quicker than it does in a regular oven.

We particularly like this story from Norway, where the companies Reitan Retail, Norgesmøllene, Felleskjøpet Agri and Yara are collaborating to bake bread with a lower carbon footprint using Norwegian oats, part of a wider initiative to reduce emissions from Norwegian food production. They’ll use mineral fertilizers made by electrolysis using renewable energy, harness better agronomic practices, and focus on precision farming tools. Oats are first on the hit list, coming with a 25-30% lower carbon footprint than imported oats.

The Times says bagelmania is the new rock ‘n’ roll

The Times says sourdough is old hat, fast being replaced with a trend for bagels so powerful and so impossible to resist that it is being called bagelmania. With ‘speciality bakeries opening up all over the place’ you’ll need to watch your back. The bagels are out to get you.

Ancient Roman wine tasted bready, Ramadan bread is a big hit

MSN is another top choice for bread tales this week, revealing an exciting story about the flavour of ancient Roman wine. The wines were fermented, stored, and aged in big pottery jars called dolia, which have recently been analysed by scientists to find out how the wine looked, smelled and tasted.

The results are in, and it looks like Roman wine was ‘slightly spicy’ with aromas of toasted bread and walnuts, which would have had an interesting drying effect in the mouth. We can only assume the Romans enjoyed it.

Then there’s Ramadan. Monday 11th March 2024 marks the start of the holy month when Muslims celebrate the revelation of the Quran. We love the sound of the special honeycomb cheese bread suggested by MSN as a way to add a special touch to the Iftar table. It blends the sweetness of honey with the richness of cheese, the texture is soft and pillowy, it’s shaped like a honeycomb and it is full of ‘warmth and joy’. That’s our kind of bread!

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