Our Flour Footprint

To be at the beating heart and an example to our communities.
95% of our flour comes from our local mill, Shipton Mill. (15miles)
All our coffee and tea comes through Bristol based Extract Coffee. (9 miles)
All our other food supplies come from within the Bristol area (maximum 25 miles). We aim to minimize suppliers by 50% to reduce deliveries in. We always use sustainable ingredients.
We get our vans from Pearce Brothers, our cardboard from Smart Packaging and disposables from Yate Supplies. All based in our local town.  (2 miles)
75% of our staff live within 5 miles of work

To minimize our waste and our environmental impact
We are minimising all plastic being used in our shops.
We aim to recycle at least 75% of our non-bread waste.
All our coffee cups are compostable and we promote the use of reusable cups with a 10% discount off hot drinks. Our branded reusable cups are made from bamboo instead of plastic. We sell reusable bread bags in our shops to reduce single-use plastic.
All our bread waxed bags are compostable within 4 weeks and our paper bags are unbleached/recyclable.

We have milk dispensers in all our shops and our bakery so use no single use milk bottles.

We believe that our bread is too good to waste and acknowledge that food waste is this countries dirty secret. We support the Real Bread Campaign’s No Loaf Lost. All our shops work to re-purpose bread into their local communities.

We support several local initiatives to help feed the hungry, such as Holiday Hunger which feeds children during the school holidays. To achieve this we partner with The Matthew Tree Project, Fareshare, Feed the Homeless and the Community of Purpose. This ensures our bread is always achieving positive things.
Where this is not possible our leftover bread goes to local farmers as animal feed in accordance with Defra’s guidelines.

We give away used coffee grounds from our shops to customers for composting.

Minimise energy and water usage and to always choose the greenest option
Our new shops are fuelled by Green Power
Our bakery is lit exclusively by LED lights and where possible are automatic to save energy.
We ensure all our sites minimize noise and light pollution

To be responsible and efficient so to keep our impact minimal

 Our vans meet the Euro Six emission standards and we will look to procure the most efficient vehicles possible going forward.

We monitor the number of baskets of bread per mile we deliver and aim for this to improve by 5% year on year.

Our forklift used in the bakery is electric.

We use our wholesale distributors where possible to reduce the impact environmentally of transportation.

Where possible, we use phone calls instead of travelling to meet customers and colleagues at our shops, however we do feel it is important for us to have face to face meetings too, but we car share or take the train or use Zoom wherever possible.

Using our bread to feed people better
In 2016 we started working with the Ifakara Bakery, Tanzania. We developed our first gluten free loaf and felt it was a good opportunity to give something back. Therefore through the sale of every award winning GiFt loaf, a loaf of bread gets donated to children in need in Tanzania. We have donated over 17360 loaves.
Work experience

We provide work experience opportunities for charities through work with Mencap and Ruskin Mill College.

For the first time in 2017 we decided to work closely with one local school. We worked with Tyndale School in Yate and taught every child to bake a loaf and gave them the ingredients to bake another at home.

We support all our staff with their own fundraising through a matched giving scheme.

We support Grace Network in Stroud, that support those in need in the Stroud area.

Where possible we support local charities, schools and events through our shops. 

At Hobbs House Bakery we support the Toilet Twinning campaign by the Tearfund charity, helping to provide clean water, basic sanitation, and hygiene education to those in need around the world. https://www.toilettwinning.org

We have a well being team to help look after our team. The year we had our first wellbeing month with lots of activities from cooking, 5 a side football to a reflective photography workshop.

We offer mental health training to all our staff and now have a team of mental health champions.

We offer a Cycle to Work scheme, supporting our staff to reduce their commuting carbon emissions, by paying for bikes on an interest free loan.

A number of employees run the Sodbury Slog every year. This past year it was used to raise money for a new defibrillator outside our bakery.

We have introduced a volunteer day, so all of our people can take a day to work for the good of others.

Sustainability has been harder to prioritise due to Covid, unfortunately more customers are currently requiring their bread wrapped. We will continue to review this and try to reduce single use plastic.

We are not currently accepting reusable cups in our cafes due to prioritising the safety of our staff.

Fortunately this does mean more of our team are working from home and all meetings are carried out remotely using Zoom.