Collessie villagers are rising to the challenge of running a community bakery.
A dedicated team of volunteers has been mixing, kneading and proving loaves and selling them straight to members of the local community. And in the absence of a traditional premises, the Doorstep Bakery has been operating out of the local village hall.
The enterprise was set up in October last year and recently awarded a £29,000 Big Lottery Fund grant to help roll out the initiative. It is led by the North Howe Transition Toun, a group helping communities meet their own food and energy needs as the world faces fossil fuel depletion and climate change.
Neil Stoddart, from North Howe Transition Toun, said: ”At the moment we have a very old oven and we’d like to have a good bread oven. We’ll be spending the money on equipment, bits and pieces for the bakery and training. Although most of us have baked in our kitchen at home, none of us have tried to sell our products. It takes a while to get consistency and techniques.
”We’re hoping to roll it out over the next couple of months as we start to build up. At the moment we’re selling direct to the public but in the next couple of months we’ll be starting to retail our bread, selling to farm shops and cafes.
”We have around 30 households on our list at the moment, which is not a lot but we’re getting more and more customers as people are hearing about us.”
Customers can choose from a white or malted loaf, each costing £2.20.
”It’s a premium, organic, handmade product and it tastes good better than something out of a supermarket,” said Mr Stoddart.
”Behind community bakeries is the idea that people are losing touch with how to make basic foodstuffs, and giving them the opportunity to relearn these skills.”
The bakery holds pizza nights to get people involved and bring the community together.
At the moment Mr Stoddart is the only paid bakery worker and he co-ordinates a team of five volunteers.
He added: ”This funding will assist the community bakery in expanding both its operation and its reach. It is vital to establishing the business as a community-owned asset and helping to develop the local economy. It will provide employment for at least one person and increase the capacity of the bakery to offer volunteer opportunities to many more local people. We’ll also be able to further develop the social aspects of our bakery with a mobile pizza oven that we will use for community events throughout the year.”
Collessie was one of 10 Scottish communities to win a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Village SOS competition. Funding was awarded to projects aimed at breathing life into local areas.Find out more at nhtt.org.uk/doorstepbakery