It’s all go in the beautiful world of bread, with many strange, weird and wonderful stories to tell along with some good news from our Kent wholesale artisan bakery. Here we go.

Yorkshire villagers chuck bread

The quaint Yorkshire village of Wath held its annual bread chucking event during the bank holiday. The traditional involves throwing bread from the top of All Saints Church when the clock strikes noon. But why do such a curious thing?

The event is held as a mark of respect to local man Thomas Tuke, who left money in his Will to make bread donations to the people every St Thomas Day. The ceremony involves reading out the Will before hurling bread from a dizzying height for onlookers to catch.

Rat bread scare

Pasco Shikishima Corporation bread is a household name in Japan. Now the brand’s reputation has gone global for all the wrong reasons, thanks to a massive product recall following the discovery of rat remains in ‘at least two’ separate loaves. The bread was baked at a Tokyo factory, where the assembly line has been shut down until they find the source of the horror.

Pumpernickel bread’s peculiar secret

A kind of rye bread popular in the USA, you’d be forgiven for thinking pumpernickel bread has something to do with pumpkins. Not so. In fact pumpernickel translates as ‘fart demon’, so called because of the notorious side effects you’d get in the olden days from eating bread made with unprocessed rye berries.

‘Pumpern’ is a German word for farts, and the ‘nickel’ bit comes from Nicholas, a name suggesting demons and goblins in old German. In the UK the devil is sometimes called Old Nick, fitting the story satisfyingly well.

The earthy-tasting deep brown bread started life in ancient times as extremely tough and dense, only made edible when softened by mopping up soups and stews. Thankfully these days the recipe has evolved into something a lot more edible and, hopefully, less pumpern.

Blue focaccia bread horror

No. Just no. We love focaccia… and it should never be blue. We agree with the hundreds of people who poo-poohed a recipe for blue focaccia on TikTok. The recipe went viral and reached four million people, many of whom called it ‘absolutely disgusting’.

A nice lady called Jade Lim made the bubble-gummy-looking bread, adding blue spirulina powder to give it a ‘subtle change in colour’ for ‘extra prettiness’. Beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder. To get the full impact you really need to see it for yourself. Here are some photos. And please don’t fret, it isn’t a trend we’ll be following!

Forget sport – do baking

Paris is preparing for the Olympics and the planet’s fortunate athletes will be doing a lot more than sorts. They’ll also have access to an actual bakery in the Olympic Village which will be holding workshops to train athletes in making the perfect baguette. How merveilleux.

It’s white bread Jim, but not as we know it

There’s some new research afoot, funded by the Government and aiming to make the nation’s food healthier. The idea is to create a new sort of white bread that’s just as healthy as wholemeal while looking exactly like the fluffy white stuff we’re familiar with. Apparently the project is in its early stages. We’re intrigued to know how it turns out.

Proper taste-sensation artisan bread full of gorgeous ingredients

Our wholesale artisan bread is made the way bread should be made, and the flavours prove it. Request some free samples and you’ll be hooked. Your customers will be thrilled to bits with the sheer deliciousness, too.