Sourdough For The National Trust

We have had the pleasure of supplying the National Trust for many years, providing their cafés with our white and harvest bloomers to accompany their soups. Through working primarily with the wholesaler Creed, we are able to continue supplying The Trust with our handmade bread.

Over the last twenty years, we’ve witnessed a shift in trends towards using more sourdough. Jumping on the trend, National Trust saw this as an opportunity to update and modernise their menu, with their product development team deciding to introduce sourdough through their toastie range. The Trust kicked it off by using our St Martin Sourdough, a malted sourdough we have evolved over the years to make the very best toasties. The rise of the sourdough toastie has been phenomenal, with our St Martin making over 500,000 toasties at festivals this decade.

The Trust then wanted to explore a white sourdough, a bit more of a rustic loaf, but still with uniform slices to reduce waste. They provided us with some samples that represented what they were looking for in form, flavour and texture, which led to our bakers and NPD team working together to create a 1.8kg sourdough. Developing a loaf of this size came with its challenges, one being finding a basket to rise it in; we originally tried plant pots, and adjusting ones we had before sourcing a suitable one. 

Our bakers worked their magic and the rather unoriginally named Large White Sourdough was born, with its 26 usable, equal slices. This magnificent loaf is made from white Shipton Mill flour and risen with two sourdough starters: a white starter and our original 69-year-old organic rye sourdough starter. We even trim the ends off for our customers when we slice them, helping to minimise their waste. These scraps are then given to some very happy local pigs.